


He's All That

by crinklefries



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 80K of slow burn I make no apologies, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gratuitous amounts of fluff, M/M, Mention of date rape drugs, Minor Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli, Mutual Pining, Past Relationships, Rhodey deals with too many white boys on a constant basis, Slow Burn, Steve is only alive bc Sam Wilson takes care of him, all the college tropes of your dreams, anyway this is a romcom make no mistake, artist and general social disaster Steve Rogers, extreme amounts of sass but also fluff, minor Bucky Barnes/Loki, minor Natasha Romanoff/Clint Barton - Freeform, rich frat kid Bucky Barnes, this is the underrated late 90s teen flick AU no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-06 11:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 88,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16387346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinklefries/pseuds/crinklefries
Summary: “That one,” Tony says gleefully. “I pick him.”“Him?” Bucky hisses. “Steve Rogers?”“Bet’s a bet,” Tony says smugly. “Make Steve Rogers the class president by the end of the year.”“Motherfucker,” Bucky curses. Then he takes a fortifying breath. He can do this. He’s Bucky Son of A Senator Barnes. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up in the front just the way he knows men and women like it.“Fine,” he says. “Okay. By the end of the year. Easy.”***When Bucky Barnes--son of a state Senator, future president of his fraternity, and co-captain of his college’s soccer team--gets unceremoniously and very publicly dumped at a party, his entire reputation hangs on by the thinnest thread. Drunk and humiliated, he does the only thing that makes sense--he makes a bet with Tony Stark.Now Bucky has the length of the school year to take Steve Rogers--small, asthmatic, environmentally-conscious art nerd, political activist, and complete social disaster--and turn him into the student body president. How many misunderstandings, shenanigans, and college tropes will abound before Bucky realizes that Steve Rogers, well,he’s all that?





	1. Prologue. (summer break)

**Author's Note:**

> One Saturday, many months ago, sitting and browsing for whatever 90s movie television has to offer, as one does, I found myself watching very underrated and thoroughly delightful 90s teen rom com classic, _She's All That_. As I watched then-It Guy Freddie Prinze Jr. (successfully) try to woo artist and social disaster Rachel Leigh Cook, I thought, _my god_ is this not the perfect set up for a Stucky fic? 
> 
> Months later and here we are, with an 88K+ rom com offering for [Cap Big Bang 2018](https://cabigbang.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I'd like to thank my absolutely lovely artist [fingersnapstothat](https://https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingersnapstothat/) who emailed me after claiming my prompt and said, and I quote, "Not many people know about She’s All That, it’s one of my favorite 90’s movies ever!" Victoria, your taste in movies is unparalleled. Also, your art is _perfect_ for this dumb fic. It's the best. ♥
> 
> Shout out also to my #1 forever fan and beta reader, [Neda](http://spains.tumblr.com/), thanks for letting me update you on a daily basis about how much more of this fic I had left to write, and to the Cap BB mods, for running this fantastic event!
> 
> To readers--if you take nothing else from this fic, I hope that it at least inspires you to watch more 90s teen rom coms, which were, and continue to be, the pinnacle of their genre. (Talk to me about Drive Me Crazy in the comments) ♥!

**summer break.**

The summer heat lays thick and heavy across his sweat slick skin. His head is cushioned on top of his arms, his legs stretched out behind him. To his left the clear aquamarine of the pool beckons, the inviting chill of the water, always kept ten degrees lower than is strictly comfortable, the faint scent of chlorine creeping over the edge and settling in his hair and nose. Somewhere over the right side of his body, the music abruptly changes. _He_ had been listening to some delightful, summer pop playlist carefully curated by an intern at Spotify, but now the upbeat purring of like, Dua Lipa or whatever, turns to _Pussy Riot_. Which he can only recognize, because Natasha had refused to continue their friendship after their disastrous failure of a hook up if he didn’t fully immerse himself in the feminist pop punk political genre. Or something. Honestly, most of the time Natasha talks and Bucky uses his famed one hundred watt smile to pretend he’s listening and then goes back to daydreaming about puff pastries. Speaking of, his stomach grumbles. He’s been laying out in the sun for at least three or four hours now and not only is he tanned a magnificent golden brown, but he’s also, unfortunately, sticky and starving.

Bucky groans and turns his face from the water toward his best friend. His sunglasses jostle against the pool deck.

“One, you’re the worst kind of cliché,” he complains. “And two, my ears are bleeding.”

“You have no taste,” Natasha says lazily from her sunning chair.

“And three, I’m fucking _starving_.”

“Иди и накорми себя сам, ленивая ты корова,” Natasha rattles off. _Go feed yourself, you lazy cow_. She stretches her legs out in front of her. The sun glints off perfectly tanned, smooth, dancer’s legs. Her small black bikini has straps everywhere. Her red curls are pulled away from her long neck and tied up around the top of her head and her nails are painted an emerald that’s now burned into Bucky’s retinas. In other words, Natasha Romanoff looks lethal, and if Bucky hadn’t already tried and tested it during the aforementioned Disastrous Failure of a Hook Up, he would be salivating over her.

As it is, he just smiles at her instead.

“Aw honey, you know I love it when you speak to me in sonnets. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, and all that.”

“I was comparing you to a lazy cow,” Natasha says. She adjusts her own sunglasses and turns on her side.

“Is that from Sonnet 33 or 116? I’m moved. Shakespeare was a visionary of his times,” Bucky says.

“It’s from Sonnet You’re-a-Fucking-Nerd,” Natasha replies.

“You’re gonna hurt my feelings,” Bucky says with a yawn. Finally, _finally_ , he manages to muster the energy to turn onto his back. He squints and grunts almost immediately, the sunlight an assault upon his person even through his sunglasses.

“I’m Russian,” Natasha says over Pussy Riot’s political activism. “I don’t understand feelings.”

Bucky’s about to reply to her when his phone starts ringing.

“Who the hell calls anymore?” Natasha says aloud, but Bucky ignores her.

He looks at the caller ID and grins.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” he says, answering it immediately. “How was your artist’s retreat?”

Over the phone, his boyfriend answers, dry and acerbic as kindling. Bucky listens to him lazily, murmuring his assent and disagreement in all the right places. He’s just too warm and lethargic to get worked up over his boyfriend’s brother issues today.

“So the problem is that he needed your help and that disrupted your--creative process?” Bucky asks. He thinks that’s what he said. Honestly, he’s so close to drifting off that he can’t be entirely sure.

His boyfriend answers again, at length, and this time Bucky _does_ almost fall asleep, until he hears biting yelling over the line.

“I’m listening, I’m listening!” Bucky assures him, drowsily. He isn’t. He has no idea what he’s talking about. He has no desire to deal with it. So Bucky does what Bucky does best--he uses his charm and he evades. “Babe, listen. I’m--going through a tunnel. Yup. A tunnel. That’s--no of course I’m not by the pool with Natasha listening to overdone Russian punk and working on my tan and frankly, it’s insulting that you would accuse me of such a thing!”

The yelling intensifies and Bucky panics.

“Loki, listen I--!”

And then Bucky carefully sets his phone on the pool deck and rolls over with a loud _splash!_ into the water.

On her sunning chair, Natasha turns over entirely to start working on her back.

  
Bucky lives in an estate in the Hamptons during the summer months because his father, George Barnes, of Barnes, Barnes, and Dugan LLC, and his mother, Winifred Barnes, also of Barnes, Barnes, and Dugan LLC, are named partners in one of New York City’s most preeminent Big Law firms. Or rather, they were, and now Winifred is a named partner in said preeminent Big Law firm and George is a senator in the New York State legislature and spends most of the year in a veritable mansion up in Albany.

Bucky spends most of the year at SHIELD College, an inordinately expensive and prestigious liberal arts school a few hours outside of New York City, known for its Ivy League-educated faculty, competitive academic programs, and top tier soccer program, which Bucky, incidentally, happens to be captain for. Well, co-captain. If not for the fact that T’Challa is a dream of a forward, a natural-born leader, and unspeakably gorgeous, Bucky would have had the captaincy all to himself. As it was, the vote was split and Bucky himself voted for T’Challa after T’Challa had made the calculated move of, well, _smiling_ at him.

It’s not his fault T’Challa is easily Top 10 Most Beautiful Men On Campus Other Men Would Sleep With If He Was At All Waffling On the Kinsey Scale.

But anyway, during the summer, Bucky and George and Winifred and his younger sister, Becca, live in the Hamptons, which really means that George and Winifred wine and dine with other rich New Yorkers who will donate to George’s next campaign fundraiser while Bucky and Becca alternately snipe at one another and lay out in the sun and pine for someone to feed them.

Sometimes, Bucky invites his friends over. Well, friend. He has the others, but Natasha is the only one he can really stand to be around for endless hours at a time and even then mostly because Natasha will curse him out in Russian when he says or does something stupid and he finds that rather entertaining. She also lowkey scares George and Winifred and he finds _that_ straight up hilarious.

After the requisite time swimming and bathing in the sun, Bucky gets a text from Becca that’s just a fork and knife emoji.

“Finally,” he groans and hauls himself up and out of the water. He’s a little bit like a prune now, but a devastatingly attractive and well-tanned prune. “You stayin’ for dinner?”

“No,” Natasha says, finally sitting up as well. A few curls fall from her updo and land gracefully around her shoulders. She’s turned just the right shade of tan, not a degree more or less. It’s actually infuriating and borderline perplexing.

“Dance practice?” Bucky asks knowingly. He runs his towel through his hair.

“The American Ballet Theater does not recruit chumps,” Natasha says, pushing up her sunglasses. Her green eyes glitter at Bucky.

“Why do I feel like that comment is directed at me?” Bucky scratches his nose.

“Because it is,” Natasha says. She stretches in her seat, like a cat waking up from a long day of strenuous napping, and then rises to her feet in one graceful, fluid motion.

“I’m not a chump!” Bucky protests.

“You, James Barnes, are a chump,” Natasha says. “До скорого.”   
  
See you later.

She leaves no room for dissent, just picks up her phone and starts rapidly speaking into it in French as though she had been on a call this entire time, and as though it’s normal for one person to be a casual polyglot. Bucky watches her leave as he always does, more confused than he had been to begin with.

  
Bucky showers and heads downstairs, expecting to pick an apple from the kitchen counter until someone magically made food appear to settle his rumbling stomach. What he doesn’t expect is for Becca to catch his arm at the bottom of the staircase and hiss at him as she pulls him into the alcove underneath.

“What the--” he blinks at her, ruffled and confused.

“We’re having a _family dinner_ ,” she says to him. Her nails bite into his arm and he winces and simultaneously stares at her as though she’s grown a second head.

“A what?”

“A _family. Dinner_ ,” Becca repeats. “A dinner for the family. Family and dinner, together, simultaneously, in one room.”

“I’m aware of the concept,” Bucky says with a frown. “I’ve seen it on TV.”

“Well maybe George and Winifred have discovered Netflix, because there’s food on the table and we are both expected to sit there and eat it,” Becca says. And then adds, “With them.”

“What did you do?” Bucky blinks at her.

“What did _you_ do?” Becca asks.

Neither sibling has a good answer because Bucky can rack his brain and come up with a list of ten things immediately and if Becca’s uneasiness is anything to go by, she has a comparable list ticking through her mind.

“Okay,” Bucky says slowly. “Okay, it’s not a problem. We just have to have a--”

“United front,” Becca says. She tucks long strands of brown hair, coming loose from a lazy ponytail, behind her ear. Her grey-blue eyes glint with solidarity. She looks exactly like Bucky, which Bucky would have to be blind not to notice.

“Don’t let them get to us,” Bucky says.

“There’s more of us than there are of them,” Becca says. And then amends, “Kinda.”

“We’re only as weak as we are divided or whatever Dumbledore said in Prisoner of Azkaban,” Bucky says. He fucking loved those books.

“Goblet of Fire,” Becca corrects. She had introduced him to them.

“Thanks,” Bucky says.

“No problem,” Becca replies.

“Ride or die, Barnes,” Bucky nods. He sticks out a hand.

“Ride or die, Barnes,” Becca agrees and takes it.

It’s a code they had worked out when they were younger and realized that their high-powered parents were not only lowkey monsters with untenable expectations, but also desperately easy to manipulate if ganged upon by their two beloved and overachieving children. What it means in actuality is something closer to _if I go down I’m taking you down with me_ , but, well, it’s been wildly successful for both of them for nearly a decade now.

Bucky and Becca look at one another and take a deep, united breath. Then they go in for a Barnes Family Dinner.

  
The truth is that Barnes Family Dinners occur with some infrequency, like when one of the Barnes children has done something commendable, or when George has been particularly politically successful, or when Winifred has won a particularly contentious case, or when three planets align in the sky and twelve other planets are in retrograde and no one has conflicting plans and they just decide family dinner might be a fun, even desirable activity. Bucky hasn’t done anything this summer other than get an excellent tan and ignore the LSAT review books his father had shoved at him, and Becca hasn’t done anything this summer other than redo her entire wardrobe and show up semi-regularly to her Teen Vogue internship, and neither George nor Winifred have had political and/or legal wins as far as Bucky’s been aware of, so that only leaves the planetary thing, which is a bit weird, but would explain why Bucky can’t seem to get his goddamn hair to settle properly in the back lately.

His mother and father are already seated at a table laden with all sorts of foods--potato salad and bright green beans, an enormous salad that takes up a quarter of the table, three cooked vegetable dishes, a basket of warm rolls, and an entire rotisserie chicken. There’s a glass of wine by each table setting, which makes Becca, who is quite certainly not 21 years old as of yet or even close, raise her eyebrow, but not utter a single word in case George and Winifred regain their senses.

Bucky has a sort of foreboding feeling in his stomach, like no table that serves this much delicious food when he’s this desperately hungry can possibly bring him any good news whatsoever.

“Darling,” Winifred smiles at him. She has her dark brown hair twisted into a braid that lays on her shoulder. She’s wearing a sleeveless dress and bangles that jingle on her wrists. “You look well rested. Chicken?”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees cautiously and his eyes flicker over to Becca. Becca resolutely ignores them and helps herself to some rolls.

Bucky hands his mother his plate and she begins loading it with some of each dish, chattering away the entire time about whoever she had gotten lunch with that day and a new recruit to the law firm that they had swiped laterally from Cravath and how she was thinking of arranging for a last minute trip to the Maldives for the entire family just to celebrate a warm and lovely summer before everyone returned to their usual hectic schedules.

George replies by sipping at his wine and tearing a roll in half and reacting to Winifred’s stories with good humor, laughing in all the right places and interjecting with his own biting commentary in all of the other right places.

Bucky is hard pressed to keep the skepticism off his face. The Barnes family isn’t cold assholes, but it isn’t exactly the inexplicably joyful type either. Usually their dinners are casual, the parents talking shop and Bucky and Becca debating whatever Netflix binge they’re currently in the middle of. But this is—

“Are you getting married?” Becca hisses to him when George and Winifred are preoccupied. “Tell me quickly. Did you find someone for you? Did they find someone for you? Is this an arranged marriage? Are you marrying a Kennedy?”

“Fuck!” Bucky hisses back at her. “No? I think? I don’t know? Did they? Is it? Am I? Oh my god.”

Well, George and Winifred aren’t _stupid_ , so they roll their eyes at their children’s antics.

“Oh stop your paranoia and eat your chicken,” his mother says and hands him back his plate. “We just want to celebrate our family and the summer. We can’t want to celebrate our family and the summer?”

“I think we’d be more inclined to celebrate our family and the summer if you guys found Bucky a Kennedy,” Becca says sweetly over her glass of wine and Bucky chokes on a cherry tomato.

Winifred giggles—she fucking _giggles—_ and even George laughs.

“Not a Kennedy,” he says. “But the next best thing.”

“A Clinton? A Prince?” Becca asks. “Dad, Harry just got married like, a week ago.”

“Oh my fucking god,” Bucky groans and takes a gulp of wine.

“Language, James,” his mother chides, but this too is lazy and amused. “We are not getting James married to royalty.”

“Yet,” Becca wriggles her eyebrows and George winks.

“Yet,” he says.

It’s fundamentally unfair, Bucky mourns to himself in the safety of his head, that he and Becca could look exactly the same and their father would still love her the most. Like okay, he gets it, Becca’s his favorite too, brat as she is, but also monumental unfairness.

“I have a boyfriend,” Bucky says out loud.

“Not that we’ve met him,” Winifred says pointedly.

“Semantics,” Bucky mutters into a forkful of potato salad.

“Semantics are the most important thing,” George says. And he swells then—really, just, chest puffs out and _swells_ and Bucky can tell that this, this is what he’s been waiting for, this is why the Barnes Family Dinner has been called. “In law and politics.”

Bucky and Becca just stare at him.

“Daddy, jokes just don’t work that way,” Becca says after a moment of confusion. “For one, they have to be funny.”

“Hush,” George says good naturedly. Then he turns his eagle-eyed stare toward Bucky in a way that Bucky has memorized, in a way that makes his stomach flip and drop in the same motion.

He knows what’s coming next, or some version of it. It’s been written in the introductory emails with Deans of Admission that George has sent to Bucky over the past year, in the student bar association networking events and happy hours he’s been unwittingly signed up for, in the stacks of LSAT prep books that he’d found adorning his room the first day he came home for summer break, backpack slinging off his shoulder and suitcase handle in one hand.

George and Winifred had met at Harvard Law School decades ago and it had been the hardest and best three years of their lives. They had graduated at the top of their class, racking up accolades between them, been scooped up immediately by two of the most prestigious law firms in Washington D.C., both feeder firms for Supreme Court clerkships. Winifred had gone on to clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and George had almost clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer, but had decided last moment to take a two figure salary bump to be snatched up by a rival law firm instead.

They had been wildly successful then and had opened their own firm and, two children notwithstanding, were wildly successful now.

What all of that amounted to was unparalleled ambition and almost astronomical standards for their children. Becca, at least, was still in high school and, luckily, had more than a fleeting interest in the law. Bucky was going to be a junior in college, which was the perfect time for his father to be inundating him with propaganda for law school.

He realizes, at some level, that he’s fulfilling some dire stereotypes about whining rich kids, but it doesn’t change how out of control his life feels when he stops to think about it. George and Winifred have had his next steps planned out for him since he started _taking_ steps. Bucky can’t remember the last consequential decision about his own life that he had any voice in. And this would be the ultimate capitulation, his future handed to him by his father and mother--the field, the school, the career path packaged and delivered with the best of intentions, sealed with love, and knocking every last breath out of his body.

  
Bucky doesn’t have anything against the law. The law has served his family inordinately well. It was for his mother and father. It might be for his sister. But it’s not for him. He knows this as surely as he knows that the constant, anxious knot in his stomach at every introductory email and networking event and happy hour isn’t from nerves.

When Bucky closes his eyes and imagines this future, a future laid out for him, i’s dotted and t’s crossed before he was even born, a future that looks exactly like his parents, same schools, same concentrations, same law firm, he finds it difficult to breathe. His insides grow cold, a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth, his chest closed tight from anxiety, his lungs refusing air. He gasps, over and over, wakes up in the middle of the night in a sweat. He falls. He panics.

Bucky opens his eyes now, feeling his chest constrict, that familiar buzzing sound cascade around his ears. His father’s shape swims in and out of his vision. He realizes he’s holding his wine goblet so hard it’s on the verge of cracking.

Across the table, Becca watches him, eyes wide. She pantomimes taking a deep, deep breath.

Bucky follows her lead.

He takes a breath.

It’s shaky, but it’s air.

“--there’s one in February and one next June,” his father is saying. He’s smiling, bushy mustache wrinkling and twitching as he voices his pleasure. “With all that you’ve been studying, I’m sure you’ll be ready for it in February, but if you think you’d rather take the entire year to really nail the 180, we can sign you up for June. And--this is the surprise, I met the Deans of Harvard, Yale, _and_ Columbia Law at the fundraiser last week and they’ve each agreed to meet with you during the school year. I gave them your email address and phone number, so expect a call from their assistants to schedule an interview.”

The words flow in and out of Bucky’s ears like rivulets in a river. He blinks for a moment, trying to process, and somewhere between Becca’s stricken face and his father’s beaming one and his mother beside him, smiling, laughing, and reaching over to touch his arm, obviously thrilled for him, because he must be thrilled, because _why wouldn’t he be thrilled_ , Bucky, well.

Bucky has a panic attack.

  
* * * *

The thing is, it’s absolutely unfair. He’s used to the heat, right? Because every summer he rents a closet that’s inevitably up a four story walk up that would have an elevator if the building was built during modern times and not the fucking Stone Age, which wreaks havoc on his asthma, but like, what college student can pay for an apartment in Brooklyn off of the meager, remaining dregs of their student loan and what paltry money they earn from their minimum wage job as a weekend Starbucks barista? Anyway, the Closet Known As His Apartment never has air conditioning because, again, the Stone Age, nevermind that he rents a different closet every summer, they’re all at the top of a four story walk up and none of them ever have air conditioning.

Anyway, the point is, it’s absolutely unfair because the amount of time he spends in the aforementioned Closet in the humid, unbearable New York City summer heat combined with the sheer amount of time he spends waiting for the F train in the humid, intolerable MTA subway station should make him immune to the humid, insufferable summer weather, especially when he’s outside, in what’s supposed to be fresh air, but somehow, despite all of the above, it remains deeply untrue. It’s so hot that not only is he sweating through his white t-shirt, there’s rivulets of sweat streaming down the back of his neck and his blond hair doesn’t resemble hair anymore so much as a damp mop. It’s so hot that he’s been forced to drink approximately a gallon of ice cold water, which means he’s peed roughly ten times in the last hour and sweated the rest out anyway. It’s so hot that he thinks he’s going to have an asthma attack.

“You’re not going to have an asthma attack,” Steve mutters to himself and hopes that by saying it out loud, he can will it into existence.

He trudges across hot concrete that smells like spoiled garbage and up a hill that’s only slightly inclined, but enough to make him breathe heavily by the time he gets to where he needs to be. After that, he passes through the gates, nodding his head to the guard.

He knows exactly how many steps to take now, has memorized what comes before and what comes after. He would know the directions blindfolded, in the dark, senseless.

Steve knows where Sarah Rogers rests by heart.

  
He puts the bouquet of flowers down by the headstone, replacing the wilted flowers he had brought only last week. The flowers this week are the same as the flowers last week--tulips, her favorite flower, and yellow, her favorite color.

“Hey, Ma,” Steve says. He runs a hand across the top of her gravestone, like he always does.

“I missed you,” he says, like he always does.

Sarah Rogers doesn’t reply, but she never does.

Steve sits on the grass in front of his mother’s grave, etching into his sketchpad. There’s nothing in particular he’s working on, except he’s going into his junior year of college, so all of the bullshit general education requirements are done and now he’s up to his eyeballs in his art concentration. He had taken a few of the required beginning art courses during his last spring semester, but the professor had taken one look at Steve’s first assignment and insisted this was both a waste of his time and Steve’s talents. He had sent Steve to the head of the department--Abraham Erskine and well, that had been the start of this.

This being the ceremonial title given to the stabs of anxiety and insecurity he had every time he picked up a charcoal pencil or a paintbrush.

It’s not that Erskine was unfair or unkind--anything but--but he was critical and tough and Steve desperately wanted him to be his senior advisor. The only problem was that as kind as Erskine was, there was always something a little off when he saw Steve’s work, as though he always expected better and Steve, although he would make the grade, could never quite reach that mark. He just wanted to impress Professor Erskine. He just wanted to make his Ma proud.

He sketches mindlessly until he realizes the curves of his pencil haven’t been mindless at all. A face emerges in the drawing, sweet and soft, sad and sick. He can’t color in the soft, straw blonde of her hair, but he can see it in his mind, the wisps framing her heart-shaped face, blue eyes brightening an already bright smile. Steve, with his floppy blond hair, fair skin, delicate cheekbones, strong nose, and bird-like frame, had inherited only a few things from Sarah Rogers, but her blue eyes and bright smile were two of the best.

That is, when he smiled at all anymore. It had been harder since she had passed, a year and a half ago, one semester into his freshman year of college. That first year had been the most difficult, a blur of shapes and memories that probably existed, but that Steve was hard put to recall. He remembers the agonizing, earth-shattering feeling of her loss and the emptiness that had come thereafter. Everything else in between that horrible night and the one year mark had been nothing more than a deeply grey and miserable nightmare. But the last semester had been okay. The summer had been okay. Steve still doesn’t smile or laugh as easily as he used to, but he’s stopped wishing for an early death, so that’s a sign of progress. Or so his therapist seems to think.

Steve spends the entire hot, humid day with Sarah, talking to her in intervals, sketching her and then sketching everything around them--old headstones, the giant tree nestled to the side of the white mausoleum, the tombstones and statues made to look like angels, the clear, July sky, Steve’s memory of Sam’s profile.

As if Sam knows exactly what Steve is doing, Steve’s phone starts ringing.

“Hey Sam,” Steve says with a grin. He leans back on a hand, legs stretched out in front of him. A grasshopper hops onto the rubber sole of his worn, battered Converses and hops away. “How’s your grandma?”

Sam’s grandmother is a 90 year old matriarch of an enormous family who Sam swears-- _swears_ \--has killed a man. He’s equally terrified and reverent of her, which Steve supposes is how one should treat a 90 year old matriarch who has possibly and even probably killed a man.

“ _She’s gonna outlive us all, man_ ,” Sam says on the other end. “ _You with your Ma?_ ”

“Yeah,” Steve says. It hits him like a pang, the deep ache in his chest at that question. He is with his Ma, it’s true, but the question makes him think he should be able to answer a different way, like _yeah I’m with my Ma, you wanna talk to her? Here let me put her on because she’s very, very much alive_. He swallows and looks up at the quietly darkening sky.

He’s been out here so long the colors are changing.

“ _Tell her I said hi_ ,” Sam says because Sam is the best friend Steve could ever wish for. “ _Are you spending the day with her?_ ”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Gotta spend today with her. It’s tradition.”

There’s a pause over the line and Steve can tell Sam wants to say something. Maybe it makes Sam sad. Steve is sad. But then, Steve is usually sad these days.

“ _You don’t have any other plans?_ ” Sam tries. “ _Friends in the city? Coworkers?_ ”

Steve shakes his head even though Sam can’t see. His throat is tight, his voice dangerously close to watery.

“It’s tradition, Sam,” Steve says. “I can’t break tradition.”

Sam might understand and he might not, but he’s a good enough person to not ask one way or another. He accepts Steve’s answer and allows him this, his one moment of peace. That doesn’t mean he stops talking to Steve though. If anything, it gives him more motivation to continue talking to him, catching him up on the latest Wilson Family Drama, and planning their apartment for the upcoming school year. Sam talks to him for so long that the colors stop changing. They’ve changed into a navy, inky blue.

Suddenly, in the distance, something pops and lights spring into the air.

“Oh,” Steve says quietly.

“ _Over there too?_ ” Sam asks.

Steve watches the fireworks blossom in the dark of the sky, sparks and showers of reds and blues, greens and whites, golds and oranges. It doesn’t matter how old he gets or how many times he sees them, Steve thinks he will always see fireworks and be awed by the sheer joy of them, their absolutely immense magnitude.

He will look at fireworks in the sky on the Fourth of July and remember his mother taking his face between her hands and kissing the crown of his little blond forehead and saying, _they’re for you, my darling, they’re celebrating you_.

“ _Happy Birthday, Steve_ ,” Sam says after a while.

“Thanks, Sam,” Steve replies. “See you soon.”

He hangs up the phone and then it’s just him here, him and his Ma, and the grass beneath his knees, and the fireworks lighting up the sky, and the sketchpad of drawings, all of her, in some way, resting on his thighs.

In the background, someone plays country music from the stereo of a parked car.

 _Happy 21st Birthday, my darling_ , Steve imagines his mother saying to him just then. _Look, they’re for you. They’re celebrating you_. Or; _I’m here with you. I’m here celebrating you._

Steve pulls up his knees to his chest, tips his forehead onto his knees, and cries.

  
Steve’s internship with the Brooklyn Historical Society wraps up at the beginning of August, which is just as well because a mouse starts cohabiting The Closet with him and in the eventual battle for dominance, Steve suspects the mouse would win.

He packs his one suitcase and one box of belongings, carefully puts away his art supplies, and tells Starbucks not to expect him back. Unsurprisingly, Starbucks isn’t fazed, but Wanda, his favorite coworker, does make him a venti cotton candy frappuccino with soy milk as a going away present that’s so sweet it nearly induces him into diabetic shock.

He painstakingly shuffles to Port Authority in 95, feels like 110, degree weather and by the time he collapses onto his Greyhound seat heading back upstate he is surprisingly, shockingly, ready for the school year to begin.

 _upperclassmen, here go hell come_ , Sam texts.

Steve pushes his messy, unruly blond bangs back out of his eyes and picks at leftover paint from his left hand.

Yeah, he thinks after a breath. Here go, hell come.


	2. fall semester. (august-october)

**fall semester (august-october).**

Bucky drops his backpack on his desk chair, shoves his suitcase in front of his closet, and throws his body onto his freshly made bed. He has never felt better about the $100 increase in fraternity dues that Thor had suggested the previous year to pitch in for a cleaning service to go through the fraternity house once a week. Bucky’s natural anxiety often manifests in a need to be meticulously clean, but he had learned the hard way with his freshman roommate, a neurotic mess by the name of Scott Lang, that not all young men have the same devotion to hygiene or an easily navigable bedroom floor. Bucky makes everyone take their shoes off before entering his room and he always folds his clothes and puts them away neatly at the end of the day. Once, Tony had tried to sit on his bed in jeans and he had gotten himself nearly pushed out the window for his efforts. To this day, Bucky’s only real regret is that Tony’s big head had gotten stuck in the window halfway through.

He rolls around on his bed, luxuriating in the lack of LSAT books and freedom from George’s eagle-sharp gaze. He’s well and settling in for a well-deserved pre-semester, mid-afternoon nap, when his door opens.

He expects to hear a mixture of male voices, but what he hears, instead, is nothing at all. He swears to god that woman could work for the CIA and it would be just as plausible as her being a dance major.

“This is a _fraternity_ house, Natalya,” Bucky complains aloud.

He still hears nothing, not even the door closing, but he does feel the very slightest of dips as Natasha settles on the bed next to him.

“Are you wearing your outdoor jeans?” Bucky asks suspiciously.

“You just try to throw me out that window, Barnes,” Natasha says dryly. “And I know where I am.”

“We’ve been over this,” Bucky says. “If you wanted to spend all of your time in a Greek house, you should have joined a sorority.”

“First of all,” Natasha says. Her voice sounds lazily dangerous, as though she wants to intimidate Bucky, but can’t really be bothered to go all the way with it. For his part, Bucky’s too sleepy to be properly intimidated by his best friend at the moment.

“Why is there always a first of all?” Bucky complains. “Why can’t it ever be one point and stop there?”

“Because you say too many stupid things I have to respond to,” Natasha replies. “Anyway, first of all, I did join a sorority. Once. For a month. And then we both decided it was not for us.”

By “us,” Natasha means both her and the sorority. They had mutually decided to end her rush after the sorority sisters tried to both haze her in a friendly manner and to get her to join in their sisters groupthink. She had scared the shit out of the blonde who had attempted to kidnap her from her dorm room in the middle of the night, courtesy of the knife she hides under pillow, and she had explained to one of the senior sisters in rather graphic details the gruesome scenes of torture she would be willing to endure before she ever participated in a sorority handshake.

“Uh huh.” Bucky had heard about the entire ordeal, not from Natasha, but from Tony, who had heard it from Pepper, who had eventually joined the sorority, for networking purposes she said, and Bucky had already laughed his whole ass off about the entire affair.

“Second of all, I saw Thor outside and he practically held the front door open for me himself.”

“That--” The word Bucky wants to say is _asshole_ , but he could think of no word less fitting for his golden, shining, overly kind, and charming, and charismatic, golden retriever of a fraternity president. So he finishes, with very little conviction, “--person.”

Natasha snorts. She tucks a red curl behind her ear and shifts so that her knee is pressed against Bucky’s thigh. Natasha hates physical contact, except for when she’s initiating it. In that instance and that instance alone, she drinks in human touch like a cat lapping up milk. She touches Bucky a lot, mostly because since the Disastrous Failure of a Hook Up, they had both decided, in no uncertain terms, that they could never and would never be anything close to resembling sexual partners.

Anyway, he’s dating a guy now, so the only touch that gets him going is his hot boyfriend’s, or whatever.

Speaking of his hot boyfriend, Bucky checks his phone for any missed calls or text messages. He does have a string of texts from Scott and a few from Tony and a couple from Thor and one from Becca, but there is nothing from Loki, who is moving back into his apartment sometime today.

“Is this thing on?” Bucky mutters and squints at his screen.

“You’re so boring when you’re pining,” Natasha says and nudges Bucky’s thigh.

Bucky graces her with a half-hearted grunt.

“I’m not pining,” he says. “I’m making sure my iPhone is functional in the year of our lord two thousand and eighteen.”

“You’re pining and it’s an ugly look,” Natasha says. “You’re going to get wrinkles and your hair’s going to fall out.”

Bucky gasps because his hair is clearly his best feature and flips Natasha off.

“Are you all moved in?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Natasha says. She had decided to go off-campus for the year, sharing a three bedroom apartment with Pepper Potts and Maria Hill. “Classes don’t start for two days, Barnes. I’m bored.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do about that, Romanoff?” Bucky mutters. He taps his iPhone screen, as though that will make Loki’s texts appear magically.

“Entertain me, you cretin,” Natasha says.

“Want I should explain to you our plan for winning the College Cup this year?” Bucky smiles at her beatifically. Soccer practice actually starts the day before classes do and Bucky and T’Challa have already sent a drills and training schedule out to the team. They start bright and early with a 7 am five mile run.

Natasha makes a face like she really _would_ rather be thrown out Bucky’s window than have to sit through another second of information about the NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Tournament.

She’s about to say something, more snark than real comment, when an annoying head appears at his doorway, followed by an even more annoying rest of body.

“Did someone say they were in need of entertainment?” Tony’s annoying voice offers.

“No,” Bucky says. “I didn’t hear anything about that. Did you, Nat?”

“Never heard of the word,” Natasha says.

“Very funny,” Tony replies. “You two losers. Party tonight. Be there or be--well, somewhere lame. Somewhere not cool. The party’s cool. Somewhere else is not cool. I’m cool.”

“Your marketing strategy needs work,” Natasha says. But she does look interested. “Where?”

“Rhodey’s frat,” Tony says. “They’re throwing a--” he makes some wild and ambiguous hand gestures. “--start of year thing. Free flowing booze.”

“At the frat house?” Bucky frowns. “Isn’t that against Hellenic laws?”

“Let me tell you something about Hellenic laws, Barnes,” Tony says with a start. “First of all laws are fake. Second of all, no one drank like the Greeks.”

“You’re not Greek, Tony,” Bucky says.

“I am _Hellenic_.”

“I don’t know how to tell you that that’s not a thing,” Bucky says, scratching his nose.

“I don’t know how to tell you that you’re not the president _yet_ and if you want to follow in Odinson’s size like 27 footsteps, you have to have more of a pulse than a wet sock,” Tony says.

Bucky lazily turns his head toward Natasha.

“Do wet socks have pulses, generally?”

“I think that’s the point, dear,” Natasha answers. Her look is hovering somewhere between amusement and exasperation, which, to be fair, is her normal face.

“Oh,” Bucky says. “Weird. Because last I heard, everyone loves me.”

“That was before all of the--” Tony gestures vaguely toward Bucky’s face.

“Pining,” Natasha supplies for him. “See, I was warning you about that.”

“Hey, Stark,” Bucky says. “How’s Pepper? What round of rejection are you on now?”

Tony, being Tony, answers in a flurry of hands and neuroses.

“Whatever! Be there! Starts at 10.” Tony wags his fingers around threateningly for a few more seconds before he sees someone down the hallway. “Hey! Fandral!”

Tony’s departure leaves a silence between Bucky and Natasha, filled only by the sounds of Bucky’s luxuriating and Natasha’s soft typing on her phone. She must get whatever answer she’s seeking because she finally puts it down.

“God, a frat party,” Natasha says, as though she hasn’t been to her fair share of them.

“You did want to be entertained,” Bucky says. He sucks up his pride and sends Loki a text: _when’re you getting here?_ “And what is more entertaining than a house full of drunk frat bros?”

“Literally anything else,” Natasha says. She gets up from the bed in one swift move. “Be ready by 9. And stop pining. You’re ugly when you pine.”

Bucky raises a hand to flip her off.

Loki doesn’t text him back immediately, so Bucky just lets his phone fall on his face and takes that pre-semester mid-afternoon nap anyway.

  
* * * *

 

“You remember what happened last year?” Sam’s face, poised over an afternoon bowl of cereal, the late lunch of champions, or poor college students depending on how you look at it, looks at Steve intently.

Steve, halfway through one of his only boxes, marked on the outside in large block letters ART SUPPLIES, freezes. It’s not a guilty freeze _per se_ , but his shoulders do hunch a little more than he consciously allows.

“That was an accident,” Steve offers.

“You spilled an _entire_ bottle of hot pink paint,” Sam says. He waves his spoon threateningly at Steve. “Because you got _distracted_.”

Okay, in Steve’s defense, he hadn’t expected his ex to end up on that week’s episode of Chopped.

“That was barely my fault and you know it,” Steve mutters.

Sharon had been Steve’s high school girlfriend of 10 months, which in high school years, was practically forever. They had broken up right before graduation, amicably, and he had known she was in culinary school somewhere, but it was one thing to know that objectively and another to, you know, be sitting in the dormitory common room, mixing paints for a banner, and see her face on the communal television someone just so happened to turn on.  

“You are damn lucky it was on tile and that you didn’t get charged for ruining the common room,” Sam says through a mouthful of Lucky Charms. Sam really likes to act like he’s all adult and mature, but he goes through two boxes of Lucky Charms every week which Steve, frankly, finds to be both concerning and disgusting. “ _And_ the damn room smelled like paint for two whole damn weeks.”

“Listen, you keep my exes off of national television and I’ll work on the radius of my flailing limbs,” Steve says. He carefully takes out very secured bottles and tubes of his favorite paints.

Sam raises an eyebrow.

“I won’t get paint on the carpet!” Steve says, capitulating. The two of them had somehow managed to secure one of the best situated apartments in town, just down the street from campus. What they had received in location and amenities, they had paid for with a security deposit that had nearly given Steve an aneurysm. “I know that security deposit’s worth more’n my life.”

“Damn straight it is,” Sam agrees and swallows his cereal.

Steve sighs and continues unloading his supplies onto the kitchen table. He wants to take stock of everything before moving it onto his art desk in the corner of the living room. Because Sam’s a saint of a best friend, he had agreed to giving up a portion of the shared space to Steve’s artwork. Steve’s promised he’ll mostly work in the studio, but it is nice to have the option to finish assignments and other projects at home if and when the inspiration strikes.

“When’s practice?” Steve asks as he’s pulling out his case of charcoal pencils.

Sam groans at that. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter watching Steve go through his art supplies and conveniently not offering to help.

“Day before classes start,” he says. “A light 7 am five mile run.”

“Oh,” Steve says. He slowly blinks up at Sam. “Yeah, that sounds like something a normal human should subject himself to. Voluntarily.”

“There are scholarships and shit!” Sam says.

“You’re here on JROTC funding,” Steve points out.

“Whatever, Steven,” Sam says and consumes some more Lucky Charms. “Soccer is the world’s sport.”

Steve snorts at that because the only sport he really knows anything about is baseball and that, well, lost its charm once he couldn’t go to Mets games with his Ma anymore.

“Well, you have fun with that,” Steve says. He starts hauling his supplies to the cute little art desk nestled by the living room window.

Their living room space is rather large and airy, with pristine white walls, and soft, grey carpet. There’s a large, new television hanging from the wall, black shelves just underneath, and a comfortable, plush navy blue IKEA couch they had rescued from someone on Craigslist at its opposite. There’s a coffee table just in front of the couch on top of a fuzzy, white rug that feels like fake llama fur and caresses Steve’s feet every time he walks over it. To the far end of the living room is a pair of glass doors that slide open to a small, cute balcony. It’s next to this set of doors that Steve’s taken over a corner. He’s laid out tarp and placed both a small art desk and a small art easel on top. He’s already itching to take advantage of the natural light to paint.

The kitchen is attached to the other end of the living room and that’s where the square dining table is situated, which Sam claims is the entire reason he signed the lease, because it’s a man’s right and prerogative to watch TV while eating his morning (and afternoon) (and evening) cereal.

“Speaking of the soccer team,” Sam says.

“I’m not running miles with you, Wilson,” Steve says. He gestures at his body, paint brushes in his hands. “This is as good as it gets.”

“Man I know your lung capacity,” Sam says and Steve sticks out his tongue in response. Sam grins. “Not that. There’s a party tonight. Come with me.”

“You’re not my type,” Steve says. He places the paintbrushes in a battered old tin canister at the corner of the art desk.

“Don’t be a curmudgeon,” Sam says. “Come on. School hasn’t started yet. You have all year to be grumpy.”

“Sam,” Steve says. He slowly puts down all of the paintbrushes and turns to his best friend. “This is not a lifestyle choice. This is who I am. This is how I was born. I can’t just turn it on and off, it’s a blessing and a curse and I have been chosen to bear it.”

Sam rolls his eyes so hard they nearly fall into his cereal bowl. 

“You are so goddamn dramatic I don’t understand how you’re not majoring in Shakespeare,” he says.

“That’s not a major, for starters,” Steve smirks.

“All right, smartass,” Sam says. He tips the bowl of cereal milk back toward his mouth and finishes it with a satisfied pop of his lips. “Think about it. It’ll be fun. Come out, get a little drunk, meet people, dance a little, find someone to hook up with, go home with them, make their roommate’s life miserable for a couple of hours, have an awkward morning after conversation and painful parting hug, and see them in your 9 am political science class every day for the rest of the year. That’s college.”

Steve wrinkles his nose at Sam.

“That happened to you, huh?” he asks.

“I don’t. Want to talk about it,” Sam declares. He hops off the kitchen counter and goes to rinse his bowl. “But you know. It wouldn’t hurt you to have a little fun.”

“I have fun,” Steve mutters to himself. “Such as, for example, I watched three seasons of Chef’s Table last week. And now I too, am a chef.”

Sam sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Okay,” he says. “Let me clarify. You’re going to get your ass all cute for this frat party because if you don’t, I’m changing the Netflix _and_ HBO passwords.”

“Hey!” Steve protests. “Asshole!”

“It’s not enough I gotta keep him from accidentally killing himself, but now I gotta keep him from killing his social life too,” Sam mutters as he marches into his room. “This is what I get for having a white best friend. Mama _warned me_ \--”

Steve snorts as Sam closes his bedroom door behind him. He squints at his half-empty box of art supplies and tries to evaluate his life. Okay, Sam could possibly, potentially, _maybe_ have a point. Presumably the last season of Chef’s Table isn’t going anywhere. And it probably wouldn’t kill him to interact with someone not in a Starbucks apron. And the last time he had hooked up with someone had been--well, okay, _anyway_.

Steve sighs and closes the box. He supposes he should try to wash some of the paint out from under his nails.

  
* * * *

The party, as it turns out, is in the basement of Rho Delta, which Bucky had always thought was an entertaining frat choice for Rhodey, although not half as funny as Tony found it because he mentioned it at every possible opportunity.

“Rho Delta! This man looks at all of the Greek options and decided to go with the one named after him!” Tony is saying loudly. His arm is slung over Rhodey’s beleaguered shoulder and he has a red solo cup sloshing dangerously close to Rhodey’s beleaguered head.

Everyone surrounding them—Bucky, Natasha, Maria Hill, Luke Cage, and some new kid named Peter Parker—barely suppresses a groan. Every single one of them have heard this _exact same_ joke no less than five times apiece. Even Peter, who had met Tony about ten minutes ago.

“You jealous they named a frat after me?” Rhodey, who is unfortunately used to Tony Stark, asks.

This makes Tony’s drunken smile falter.

“Jealous? Why would I be jealous?”

“Because,” Rhodey says. “They named a frat after me. I don’t see your name on anything. That’s so sad. Alexa, play DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar.”

“Don’t use memes against me! You know I don’t understand them!” Tony splutters. “And you can’t have a frat named after you, that’s ridiculous. They’re Greek letters! I have a high school science lab named after me!”

Rhodey smirks and everyone snickers into their solo cups.

Tony blinks rapidly, catching up.

“Wait, that was a trick question!”

Rhodey snorts and plucks the cup out of Tony’s hand to drink from.

“Ya played yaself,” Rhodey says.

The two of them descend into typical bickering and Bucky uses the break to lean over to Natasha.

“Still not dating?”

“All evidence indicates they’re both very hetero,” she says, sipping her beer with a frown. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“All evidence indicates they’re going to get drunk married in Vegas at least once by the time they’re 30,” Bucky says and Natasha manages to hide her snicker by gracefully taking another mouthful of shitty frat party beer.

“Barnes!” Bucky hears Rumlow before he claps a big, meaty hand down on his shoulder.

Bucky know he’s supposed to like everybody in his frat, as future president and also the self-proclaimed resident Hufflepuff, but there’s something about Rumlow that always makes his skin crawl a little.

“Brock,” Bucky, the politician’s son, plasters a smile on his face that really does seem like it’s happy to see the other guy. “How’s the summer?”

“Good, you know. Pools and chicks,” Brock grins. “Worked on my summer tan and my summer bod.”

“Oh that’s—” Bucky searches for a word that won’t completely make his disdain obvious. Brock is the son of the New Jersey Swimming Pool King, which means half of any story he shares involves him, with his shirt off, at a pool. He’s rich and hot and so boring it makes Bucky want to scream. “—ready for practice?”

“Hell yeah,” Brock says and offers Bucky an honest-to-god fistbump.

“Uh,” Bucky manages intelligently and Natasha turns away to hide her snicker. It takes a beat too long, but Bucky finally returns the fistbump.

“Better take us all the way this year,” Brock says. “Or I’m gonna have to take that captain’s band from you.”

Brock laughs loudly, like he’s said something particularly funny. Bucky always gets the distinct impression that Brock isn’t really joking when he says shit like this, but he’s enough of an asshole that he can pretend and people will believe him.

"We're definitely going to try," Bucky says blandly while giving Brock an equally bland smile. Then he gestures to his cup. "Whoops look at that, I need more beer."

Bucky gives Natasha a half-apologetic smile and slips away from the small circle. His cup actually is empty, so he winds his way through a crush of sweaty college bodies toward the kitchen.

  
He sees a couple making out in the corner, pressed against the refrigerator, completely oblivious to their surroundings. The space between the counter and the refrigerator is narrow and Bucky has to awkwardly tap them on the shoulders if he wants to walk past.

The couple, plastered as they are to each other, steadfastly ignore him.

"Um, excuse me," he tries again, with another tap to their shoulders.

They don't come up for air.

“Don’t bother,” a short blond on the other side of the counter says. He has glasses that magnify his blue eyes to look kind of like they’re bugging out, his blond hair is damp and plastered to his forehead, both the t-shirt and flannel outer shirt he’s wearing are two sizes too big on him, and there’s chips of dried paint that seem embedded into his skin. He’s so short, both the guy _and_ the girl of the Making Out Couple blocking him in on the other side of the kitchen island are taller than him. In short, he looks a bit like a complete disaster.

Bucky recognizes him from a dozen annoying campus protests about like, saving the forest or something. His name’s Steve Rogers.

“You been there long?” Bucky asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Just a few hours,” Steve says, a bit dryly. “It’s fine. I’ve always wanted to live in a frat house, behind a counter, while two libido-crazed college students go at each other against the fridge.”

Normally, a comment like that would make Bucky laugh. But Bucky doesn’t know Steve and, frankly, he thinks he’s a little crazy. So he just gives him an awkward, non-committal smile.

“Right. Uh,” he says. Suddenly, he doesn’t really care that much about filling his cup back up. He’s sure there are drinks somewhere else. “Do you uh, need help? Getting out of there?”

Steve looks at him with a steely expression and pushes his paint-flecked, sweaty bangs out of his bug eyes.

“No.”

“Oh, uh,” Bucky says, slowly backing away. “That’s, okay. Sure. Well, enjoy your...enjoy that. See you around.”

He turns on his heels and moves as far away from the kitchen as it’s possible to without also running into Brock’s enormous ego.

  
He ends up in the frat’s sizeable backyard. Blessedly, there is a keg back here on the porch, under a tree that’s strung with lights. Bucky smiles in relief to find Fandral manning the beer.

“You look well rested and a little harassed,” Fandral says with a grin as he fills Bucky’s red cup. “All signs that you either signed up for too many credits or haven’t gotten drunk enough to forget you did that.”

Bucky laughs and gratefully takes the cup from him.

“A Barnes never sleeps,” he says, raising it in toast to Fandral’s status as Fraternity Alemaster.

“And a Fandral never lets his fraternity brother go sober,” the blond says with a wink.

“Well you’re not doing a great job in that case,” Bucky grins.

“Drink the damn beer!” Fandral says, offended. “I’m not a miracle worker.”

Bucky laughs again and takes a sip of the shitty beer. It really does hit the spot. He feels himself unwind as he drinks some more, talking to Fandral and watching the crowd ebb and flow around the backyard.

  
Bucky has no misconceptions about his popularity here. He’s a Barnes and he’s handsome and he could charm a rattlesnake into giving up its sound. So people come for Fandral’s keg and stay to talk to Bucky. He figures near the beer is as good a place as any to stand and over the course of the next two hours he gets steadily more buzzed and makes his way through most of the campus Greek population--Tony and Rhodey stop by again and then Thor and Volstagg and Sif, Pepper and Maria, Natasha and Clint, Scott Lang and his new girlfriend Hope, T’Challa and Okoye and Nakia and M’Baku. Bucky talks to so many people that he’s nearly hoarse and delirious with extroverted energy when suddenly, in the middle of laughing at Tony about something, he sees a familiar head of ink black hair.

Bucky, warm and flushed, lights up immediately.

“Excuse me,” he says to Tony and Rhodey, “Excuse me, hold on, I have to--”

He makes a beeline for his boyfriend, who’s looking exceptionally handsome in tight black jeans and a green tank top with arm holes cut down to his sides. He has his hair up in a messy bun and a red solo cup in his hand and Bucky doesn’t even think before grabbing him by the front of his tank and pulling him in for a kiss.

“Hey,” Bucky says, grinning into Loki’s mouth. “God, I missed you. You look so fucking--wow. You look so hot. I missed you. Hi. Let’s find a room. Did I say I missed you?”

Bucky must be drunker than he thought because he hears himself laughing again, even though Loki pulls back and looks at him with a politely pained expression on his face.

“Hey,” he says. “You’re drunk, huh?”

“No I’m not!” Bucky says, beaming, but it comes out too loud. He leans forward to kiss Loki again. It’s not the warmest of kisses, but Loki does run a hand through Bucky’s hair, which feels so fucking good that he nearly melts against him.

“How long have you been here?” Loki asks after he pulls away. He takes a step back, which makes Bucky frown, but okay, he supposes they’re still in public.

“A few hours? I think,” Bucky says. He feels something loosening in him that he wasn’t aware had been coiled tight. He’s undeniably an extroverted, social butterfly, but he’s always carried around a ball of anxiety with him and it takes certain people to unwind that from him. Natasha has always been one of them. Loki, over the last few months, has helped too.

“Mm,” Loki says, noncommittally and takes a sip from his cup. He somehow looks both out-of-place and completely at ease, which, to be fair, is the eternal paradox of Loki. It’s what had drawn Bucky to him in the first place.

  
Bucky had met him the first day of sophomore year, when he’d showed up ready to finally move into the frat house and been greeted not by Thor, but by an unfamiliar head of black hair and bored green eyes. Loki hadn’t introduced himself as Thor’s brother--he hadn’t introduced himself at all--but Thor had come along a few minutes later, swung his arm around his shoulder, and Loki had given him such an absolutely sour look that Bucky had nearly fallen apart laughing on the spot.

They had begun hooking up a few months later, courtesy of one particularly ill-advised frat party the night before a 10 am chemistry final and approximately enough shots for Bucky to forget he shouldn’t sleep with his future fraternity president’s brother. But tequila is one hell of a drug and Loki had looked so fucking hot and Bucky hadn’t slept with anyone in months--had, in fact, been focusing on his studies like he’d promised Becca--and well, college is the best time to be young and stupid or something.

They had hooked up regularly enough after that that by the time they went into winter break, Bucky had asked Loki if they shouldn’t just make it official and Loki had said something about well, as long as it annoyed Thor. Thor hadn’t cared one way or another, to be honest, but Bucky and Loki became the Gay It Couple of campus Greek life, if such a thing existed, nevermind the fact that Loki told both Bucky and his brother constantly that he would “rather drink an entire bottle of Drano than waste his time, money, and brain cells with a bunch of former jocks at a school-sanctioned excuse for weekend orgies.”

“Okay, but you come to our parties every weekend,” Thor had told Loki once, when the three of them had been hanging out on the couch in the fraternity house and when Loki had been drinking the beer from the fraternity fridge, despite being underaged and all that.

“Schools don’t provide funding for booze-filled art nights,” Loki had replied dryly and continued unapologetically drinking Sigma Tau out of house and fraternal home.

Loki was cynical and unpleasant and pretentious and artsy and razor fucking sharp, all of which drove Bucky crazy in the best possible way. He also happened to be objectively drop dead gorgeous, brother to the most popular guy on campus, and extremely talented in bed.

All in all, Bucky’s social capital had really only increased over their last nine months of dating. It was mostly excellent to be Bucky Barnes, if you took the whole law school and parental expectation thing out of it.

  
“Are you listening to me?” Loki asks, clearly annoyed.

Bucky might have zoned out for a beat too long, but, in his defense, he’s drunk and has spent the last thirty seconds imagining how good they can make their reunion sex if they really put their minds to it.

“Sorry,” he says, smiling his trademark Bucky Barnes Smile. “I was thinking about later.”

Then he leans closer, so he can whisper loudly in Loki’s ear.

“Or now. I’m flexible.”

Loki looks at him with precisely the same look he uses on his brother just before he declares him to be the most unfortunate human being he has ever had the displeasure of being related to.

“Bucky, look,” Loki says. He shifts the red solo cup from one hand to another.

“Should we get a room?” Bucky asks. He squints at Loki and decides they deserve a room. Then he turns over his shoulder and yells at Tony, “Stark! I need a room!”

“Bucky,” Loki says, tersely. He reaches a hand out to grasp Bucky’s shoulder, but Bucky just turns and gives him a grin.

“Don’t worry, no one’s gonna care if we use their room,” he says. “You throw a frat party, you’re kinda asking for weird people hooking up in your space.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Loki tries again. There’s something sharp and annoyed about his voice that makes Bucky frown, but before he gets a chance to answer, Tony shouts back at them.

“Rhodey says you can’t use his room!” Tony flaps his arms from feet away, past a group of sorority girls who have stopped whispering about something long enough to pay attention to the commotion.

“We need to talk,” Loki says. “Can we go somewhere quiet?”  
  
“That’s what I’m trying to do, babe,” Bucky says. Then he shouts back to Rhodey, who’s standing next to Tony. “Why not! Rhodey, what gives!”

Rhodey crosses his arms at his chest and scowls. Next to him, Tony snickers. Next to Tony, Brock stops chatting up Maria Hill long enough to pay attention to the proceedings.

“You know what you did, Barnes!” Rhodey says over the din of the backyard crowd. Now most people break off mid-conversation and turn to face the bickering frat bros. “You too, Laufeyson!”

Bucky throws an arm over Loki’s shoulder and plants a big kiss on his cheek.

“That’s homophobia, Rhodes!” Bucky grins and shouts back.

“Suck my dick, Barnes!” Rhodey yells. The crowd around him titters with laughter. Rhodey grins smugly and Tony leans in to say something into his ear. Rhodey shoves his face away with a well-aimed hand.

“Can I do _that_ in your room?” Bucky laughs. In fact, he laughs so hard that he turns to shake into Loki’s shoulder.

Only to find he’s not there.

Instead, his boyfriend is a foot away from him, looking so absolutely infuriated and annoyed that the smile slides off of Bucky’s face.

“Loki--?” Bucky starts.

“Oh, for heaven’s _sake_!” Loki says, loudly.

By now enough people are paying attention that Bucky’s easy laughter and beer keg buzz are rapidly wearing off, only to be replaced by a tight ball of anxiety in his stomach.

“Hey, let’s go somewhere--” Bucky says and reaches for Loki, but Loki darts away.

He crosses his arms at his chest, his stance rigid and tightly controlled.

“I tried to do this in private, but you don’t listen,” Loki says loudly. “So everyone gets to hear this, whether they deserve it or not.”

“Hear what?” somewhere from the keg, Rumlow asks loudly.

Loki shoots a nasty look over his shoulder at Rumlow, but that, unfortunately, doesn’t stop the next words from leaving his mouth, perfectly clear, for everyone to hear.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t continue this relationship,” he says. “I am very busy right now and I need to work on my art if I want it to be a viable career path. I can’t have any distractions. And you, Bucky Barnes, are the biggest distraction of them all.”

  
Bucky can’t say that getting publicly humiliated and dumped at a fraternity party at the beginning of the school year in college is one of the best experiences he’s ever had. In fact, if he was pressed to choose, he would say it is one of the five most uncomfortable situations he has ever, unfortunately, been in the middle of.

Of course everyone in the backyard goes deathly silent at Loki’s pronouncement. Even Brock Fucking Rumlow chooses this moment of all moments to learn how to shut his goddamn fucking mouth.

Bucky only notices this after the fact. In the moment, he’s more than a little dumbfounded.

“You--what?” he splutters. “You’re not serious.”

“As a cold,” Loki says calmly, as though he hadn’t just unceremoniously dumped his boyfriend of nine months at a frat party. He even has the nerve to take a sip of his beer. “I’m really very sorry. My art is very important to me.”

“And you can’t--have both,” Bucky says, staring at him. He thinks one of his eyes must be twitching, because there is a spasm of muscle somewhere on his face that he can’t quite place, but that he distantly recognizes as occurring. “Both art and a. Boyfriend.”

“Well,” Loki says, as though just considering this. Then he shakes his head. “No.”

“So--what,” Bucky says, dumbly. “Are you going to tell me we can still stay friends?”

“That--” Loki says, again, as though he has never considered it before. He shakes his head again. “No, I don’t think so. Again, art. Very important.”

Bucky stares at Loki, absolutely, completely, unbelievably dumbfounded.

“Well,” Loki says awkwardly and clears his throat. “I’m going to find my brother. Thank you for a good nine months. They were great, really. Some of the best. I’ll see you around. Now, if you’ll excuse me--”

Loki smiles at Bucky, pats him on the shoulder, and then slides around and past him, like movement is no effort at all.

  
Bucky only has a moment to reel from being _dumped_ before he’s made acutely aware of the public nature of his dumping. The crowd, silent just a moment before, suddenly starts buzzing with whispers and snickers, like a swarm of angry and smirking bees that are very happy they haven’t lost _their_ stinger. Bucky is stupidly popular, but who doesn’t like seeing popular, handsome, rich white boys humiliated?

Bucky’s cheeks burn from embarrassment and he only has a moment to collect himself before Tony, Rhodey, and Rumlow appear at his side.

“Man, that was rough,” Rhodey offers. “He had no right to do you like that.”

“Are all gays that dramatic?” Tony peers at Bucky. Bucky must look as ill as he feels, because he quickly pats Bucky’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Barnes, you just gotta walk it off. What do you need? A man? A woman? We can find you one. That one? No, Pietro’s dating someone. Okay, how about her? No, Hill is way out of your league. Okay, uh, how about Rhodey, he’s not too hideous?”  

“Hey, jackass!” Rhodey says and jabs Tony in the side with his elbow, which makes Tony groan in pain, which incidentally, makes Bucky feel marginally better.

If feeling a brief moment of levity in addition to abject mortification and simultaneous heartbreak can count as feeling better.

For all of his ill-advised _talking_ , Tony at least is making an attempt to help Bucky feel better. Brock, on the other hand, snickers into his hand.

“Wow, Barnes,” he says. “Boyfriend and presidency in one night. You need more than a beer.”

For some reason, this jars Bucky out of his situational muteness.

“What?”

“He’s Thor’s brother,” Brock says, rolling his eyes. “You think Thor’s going to let you become president now? How would that look?”

“What’s that--” Bucky tries to get the pounding in his head under control. He swallows stomach acid. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“A fraternity president who got publicly dumped?” Brock says. “By the current fraternity president’s _baby brother_? Yikes.”

“Yikes?” Bucky stares at him. Then, trying not to panic, he turns to Tony and Rhodey. “Is that a yikes?”

Rhodey just shrugs, like it’s not his fault that white boys are so damn stupid all the goddamned time.

“Well it’s not _not_ yikes,” Tony says.

“They can’t take the presidency from me,” Bucky says, going pale. “It wasn’t my fault. He dumped me.”

“Yeah, Bucky,” Brock says and he has the fucking _nerve_ to act like Bucky’s slow. “That’s the point. Gotta be a golden boy to take over for the golden boy. And golden boys don’t get publicly dumped.”

“That’s not the rules,” Bucky says-- _insists_. “No one made those rules.”

Brock looks at him with a condescending sympathy that borders on gleeful. Rhodey just raises his eyebrows. Tony looks like he’s thinking.  
  
“You need to do something,” Tony says. “Right now. To prove you’re not a loser.”

“What the fuck,” Bucky says, loudly. “I’m not a loser. I’m Bucky Fucking Barnes. I’m fucking _cool_. Anyone who’s with me is automatically cool. I could make _anyone_ cool.”

That, horrifyingly, makes Tony snap his fingers.

“That’s it!” he says.

“White boy say what?” Rhodey looks up over his drink.

“Can you make anyone cool?” Tony says, rounding on Bucky. “That’s the test. That’s the line. You either can or can’t. Rhodey, see Rhodey? He’s a grandpa, but he can. Rumlow? Asshole, but he can. Me? Well I’m obviously the coolest person we all know, there’s no competition. You’re all basically cool because I am.”

“Are you drunk?” Rhodey inquires.

“No,” Tony replies. “Are you with me, Barnes?”  
  
Bucky, who’s coming off of a buzz mixed with stomach acid and anxiety, is starting to get angry. It’s starting to sink in, what Loki did to him.

“Who does he think he is?” he says, angrily. “Dumping _me_. I’m a senator’s _son_.”

“Yeah, okay,” Brock says, snickering again. “So prove it.”

“Fine,” Bucky says, suddenly rising to the challenge. “I bet I can make anyone--”

“Class president,” Brock says.

“Class president,” Bucky says slowly.

“Hey!” Tony protests. “I’m running for president, you asswipes.”

“Yeah,” Brock says, rolling his eyes again. “And you won’t fucking shut up about it. So that’s the bet, Barnes. You have--until the end of the year, or the election, or whatever to take some complete loser and turn him into the next class president.”

Tony looks irritated at this, but Bucky’s willing to grasp at any straws now to restore his reputation. He’s in a freefall of panic.

“Deal,” he says. “Any loser, class president.”

“But we get to choose,” Brock says with a grin. “Your victim.”

This seems like a patently bad idea, but Bucky has everything to prove and everything to lose. He’s maybe not thinking entirely straight, as broken up as he is, but he also has a healthy ego and a reasonable awareness of just how high his social capital at the school is.

“Fine,” Bucky says. He takes the drink out of Brock’s hand and drains the red cup. Then he gestures around the yard. “Pick your next class president.”

  
* * * *

Steve wouldn’t say that he’s socially awkward. He supposes that’s the nature of socially awkward people, denying that they’re socially awkward, but it really isn’t that he can’t socialize, it’s that everyone in a goddamned frat cannot stop _talking_ about being in a goddamned frat and how many ways is there to pretend to care about what James Evan Matt Caleb Collin Max did with Lauren Katie Anne Rachel Rebecca Ashley last weekend? 

Once, when he escapes his kitchen hostage situation, he chugs an entire cup of beer and optimistically asks the nearest blond boy what he thinks about the homoerotic undertones of George Wesley Bellows’s most celebrated paintings. When the blond boy stares at him blankly, Steve tries a different approach and asks him if he’s read The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is both chilling and devastating and one of Steve’s favorite novels, sober or drunk.

The blond boy--James Evan Matt Caleb Collin Max, Steve assumes--stares at him as though he’s developed an infectious skin disease, turns on his heels, and starts talking to the closest group of other blond humans who aren’t Steve.

“You could have just said you don’t know how to read, but okay,” Steve says loudly and the blond guy and his group shoot Steve a dirty look and move out of the common room and to the backyard.

Steve sighs and picks at a large piece of dried paint from the back of his hand. He could have sworn he’d washed it all off, but the paint he buys is good enough quality that it takes a few thorough scrubs. Sam also hadn’t exactly given him a reasonable amount of time to get ready, which is why he looks like he fell out of his laundry hamper.

Speaking of Sam, the traitor has abandoned him for some gorgeous, leggy sorority girl he’s evidently been eyeing since the end of their sophomore year. Steve had stopped listening to Sam lament about Claire Temple around the third or fourth drunken ode after the last party she’d almost let him kiss her at.

He must be making more progress at this one, because Steve hasn’t seen him in nearly an hour.

Other than the brief encounter with Bucky Barnes, which had been so awkward that it had almost been hilarious, Steve’s had a thoroughly uneventful and truthfully unpleasant evening. He’s buzzed enough from his drink, but he doesn’t know anyone here and no one cares to get to know him. That suits him just fine, but he is tired of feeling invisible in a room of rich, drunk college students with about as much depth to them as the shallow end of the kid’s pool.

Steve has been small, sick, and angry his entire life. His mother, maybe recognizing how easy it would have been for other children to eat him alive otherwise, had taught him never to apologize for everything he was, so he had never really learned the trait of conformity. As a result, even though he’s never really fit in and always stood out, he hasn’t minded that much one way or another. He’s as comfortable in his own skin as it’s possible for a small, asthmatic, queer college student to be, but that doesn’t mean he particularly likes putting himself in situations where people are so obviously derisive of him.

Some people, like Sam or Bucky Barnes, are born with that natural gift--a charm so effortless it’s almost surreal. Those people are and always will be at the top of the social hierarchy.

Steve doesn’t particularly care for hierarchies. He’s on at least three different Marxist listservs and reads the _Communist Manifesto_ at least once a year. It really makes no sense to him that Sam puts up with him as much as he does, considering where he should be and technically is on the social hierarchy, but Sam’s also a massive nerd who rereads all of _Lord of the Rings_ once a year and has spent at least three solid days of their lives in hours spent explaining to Steve all of his Game of Thrones theories.

Anyway, Steve’s so distracted being miserable and wishing for the total capitalist destruction of every ignorant rich kid in this frat house that he forgets to watch where he’s going. It’s a fatal error.

He’s shuffling through the common room past the group of sneering blonds when his feet collide with someone’s outstretched foot.

He feels it before he feels himself lose his balance. He stumbles over his own two feet and over someone else’s besides and his cup of beer goes tumbling all over some sorority girl in a pink dress who shrieks so loudly it’s like Steve set her on fire.

Someone yells and shoves him back and then he collides into someone else behind him and someone _else’s_ beer cup goes tumbling out of their hand and Steve ends up on his knees with beer dripping from the left side of his head and down the front of his shirt.

His glasses skitter off of his face and he’s so _fucking blind_ _without them_ that he has a moment of pure, unadulterated panic.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve curses out loud.

Around him, everyone laughs.

Steve grits his teeth and tries very, very hard not to cry.

  
* * * *

Tony’s eyes glint.

“That one,” he says gleefully. “I pick him.”

Bucky, who’s been distracted by the commotion in the common room, visible very clearly through the open glass doors, curses. Inside, everyone is in part laughing and in part scooting away from the disaster of a blond crawling around the sticky floor looking for someone.

“ _Him_?” Bucky hisses. “ _Steve Rogers_?”

“He’s cute enough,” Tony says with a wink. “If you’re into twinks. Maybe get the beer out of his hair before you take pictures for his campaign posters.”

“ _Motherfucker_ ,” Bucky curses again.

Steve Rogers might be a cute enough twink, but he has the social skills of a fish flopping on dry land. Bucky has never, not once, heard a single word out of his mouth that wasn’t either self-righteous, angry, or self-deprecating. Also, does he own an iron? Or, like, laundry detergent? How is it possible for one human to always be wearing so much paint at any given moment?  
  
“Bet’s a bet,” Tony says smugly. “Make Steve Rogers the class president by the end of the year.”

“Or what?” Bucky asks uneasily.

Next to him, Brock lets out an unkind, howling kind of cackle.

“Motherfucker,” Bucky curses again. Then he takes a fortifying breath. He can do this. He knows he has the confidence and charisma and social capital to do this. He’s Bucky Son of A Senator Barnes. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up in the front just the way he knows men and women like it.

“Fine,” he says. “Okay. By the end of the year. Easy.”

  
* * * *

Steve is blind as a bat without his glasses and his panic is so close to a full-blown _panic attack_ that he has to take deep, unflattering, gasping breaths as he stretches his hands out in search of them. He keeps bumping into sweaty ankles and shins and of course no one is actually bothering to _goddamn help him_ even though he’s crawling around like a panicking crazy person.

Steve’s just about to give up and _scream_ , when, suddenly, he feels the smooth glass of lenses and the cool plastic of frames pressed into his palm.

“You were looking for these right?” a slightly familiar voice says.

Steve’s breath leaves him in an absolutely relieved rush. He scrabbles with his glasses to put them back on his face, blinking rapidly as everything comes back into sharpened view.

“Thanks,” Steve says gratefully. He looks across from him, expecting--

Well, expecting something. Not expecting quite this something. Or someone, to be more accurate.

Bucky Barnes is somehow, for some reason left unexplained by God and every other potential higher power and spiritual being, on his knees, on the sticky floor of this fraternity house, staring at Steve with a smile that he usually reserves for people who are worth his time.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks. “I saw what happened. That asshole stuck his foot out and tripped you. I took care of him. Can I get you a clean shirt?”

Steve’s unsure if he somehow, like, tripped and fell on his head and is now having a prolonged concussive hallucination, but he supposes that seems more likely than Bucky Barnes actually speaking to him.

“I’m fine,” Steve says after three beats of pure awkward silence, during which time Bucky’s charming smile doesn’t get less charming, but does take on a very slightly strained quality at the corners. “I’m going to--uh. Thanks. I can’t see without them.”

“Vision that bad?” Bucky asks. He gets up from his knees and offers Steve a hand.

Steve stares at it. Seriously, is he dying?

“I wear contacts,” Bucky says with a wink. Like, a literal, actual, dead serious wink. “Can’t see three feet in front of me without them. Have you ever thought about them?”

Steve is so completely thrown off by the developments of the past thirty seconds of his life that he actually takes Bucky’s hand and lets him pull him to his feet. In his defense, he’s distracted wondering whether he’s having some kind of brain aneurysm.

“No?” Steve answers. There’s no real reason to answer Bucky’s very straightforward question with another question, but his brain’s stopped functioning so it’s slim pickings as far as coherence goes.

“Oh, okay,” Bucky says and his smile brightens. “Well you should think about it. Your eyes look--they’re nice. Very blue.”

“My eyes look nice,” Steve repeats skeptically. “They’re blue.”  
  
“Yeah!” Bucky says.

“Okay,” Steve says. He’s definitely either dead or dying or someone slipped some kind of mushroom into his drink, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, but also neither does anything else, so whatever. “This has been an interesting hallucination, to say the least. But I have to go now.”

That makes Bucky’s mouth tug down into a frown.

“You’re not hallucinating, Steve,” Bucky says.

“I’m definitely--” Steve starts and then stops. “Wait, you know my name?”

“You know you’re on the quad protesting something like, three times a week, right?” Bucky says, laughing.  
  
“That’s--well, true,” Steve frowns. He’s so disoriented that he’s afraid that he _might_ actually have a concussion.

“So yeah, I know your name,” Bucky smiles. “I’m Bucky, though. Bucky Barnes.”

“I know who you are, Bucky,” it’s Steve’s turn to answer. “I don’t think there’s a single person on campus who doesn’t know who you are.”

“Oh,” Bucky says and he looks so pleased it’s almost annoying, except he then ducks his head and looks abashed and that looks endearing? What the fuck kind of stupid sorcery does this rich kid dabble in? Steve’s had enough.

“Okay, well,” Steve says. “Thanks. For the help. I’m going to go now.”

“So soon?” Bucky frowns. “It’s not that late.”

“I have work in the morning,” Steve mumbles.

“Oh, cool,” Bucky nods. “Where do you work?”

And because Steve is concussed and hallucinating and probably dying, he actually answers before he can stop himself.

“The library before and between classes,” he says. “And Pym’s Pizza in the evenings.”

“You work two jobs?” Bucky blinks at him. “While going to school full time?”

“Uh,” Steve says. He starts backing away. “Yeah. Okay, well--”

“Can I come visit you?” Bucky asks, sincerely. “I like the library. I also like pizzas.”

“What?” Steve blinks at him. He’s panicking now. He’s definitely panicking.

“Or maybe I can help you at your next protest?” Bucky offers. “Do you know what it’ll be about? I like the environment. We only have one planet!”

“Am I dying?” Steve wonders aloud.

“We all are, technically,” Bucky answers pleasantly.

“Okay,” Steve nods. “That’s. Yeah. I have a concussion. I have to go get my head looked at. Okay, bye.”

“Night, Steve!” Bucky calls to him brightly as Steve quickly backs away from him, edging out of the common room of this haunted, Twilight Zone of a frat as fast as he possibly can. “If you have a concussion, stay away from strenuous physical activities and get as much sleep as possible! See you later!”

  
Steve makes it back to his apartment eventually, but not before he genuinely and seriously considers taking himself to the medical center on campus to have a nurse check out his head.

  
* * * *

Bucky wakes up the next morning with a hangover the size of a small boat, which makes sense in some kind of metaphorical He’s-So-Hungover-He’s-Gonna-Die way. He blearily unearths his head from under a pile of three pillows, miserably looks at the sunlight streaming in through his windows, groans audibly, and then attempts to bury himself again.

The attempt is only somewhat successful, because while the oppressive light is immediately extinguished, Bucky finds himself with the pressing and unignorable need to pee.

Groaning some more, he pulls himself out of bed, somehow out his bedroom door, and down the hallway to the shared bathroom at the end. Mercifully, there’s no one there, but not mercifully, Tony is blaring some of his terrible metal music in the room next door. Bucky’s head is pounding so hard that he nearly falls into the toilet trying to avoid the screamo attempting to murder him. He manages to not do that and even manages to aim properly, which is a blessing for all.

He washes his hands and marches next door to bang loudly on Tony’s door.

“Barnes!” Tony says, throwing open his door and greeting Bucky so enthusiastically that Bucky wants to meet his maker sooner rather than later. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I will murder you, Stark,” Bucky says, without blinking.

“Is this about the bet?” Tony asks. He’s building some kind of contraption on his desk, which is definitely not allowed, but who’s going to stop Tony Stark from building a shrine to science or whatever the hell he does with his free time? Tony’s in boxers and an old Metallica t-shirt, with goggles strapped to his head. It’s distinctly too early for this.

“No, this is about your murder, by my hands,” Bucky says.

“Yes, yeah, I got that,” Tony says dismissively. “It’s not the first half-hearted death threat I’ve received today and it won’t be the last. How’s the bet?”

“Great,” Bucky says grouchily. “Splendid. Seducing him as we speak.”

“That’s definitely a,” Tony pauses, index finger on his chin. “Tactic. How is that going to help him win the presidency again?”

“It’s 20-gayteen,” Bucky replies. “The year of the queer. Listen, can you turn your fucking music down, my head is going to explode.”

“You seem testy,” Tony says. He waves a screwdriver around and it takes all of Bucky’s energy to not slam Tony’s own door in his own face. “Don’t worry, everyone will forget you were publicly dumped by Thor’s baby brother in...two to three years.”

“I hate you,” Bucky glares. “And your music sucks. And you’re going to lose this bet. Bye.”

“Bye!” Tony calls as Bucky _does_ slam the door shut. “Happy Seduction! May the odds be ever in my favor!”

  
Bucky manages to cobble together another hour or two of sleep before his stomach wakes him out of hunger and confusion. He gives in, drags himself out of bed again, takes a shower, reassesses the choices he keeps making in this life, and sits down at his desk with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch because it’s the breakfast of champions and he’s trying to avoid anyone who is going to try to talk to him about Loki or about Steve or about anything at all, really, his head still hurts.

He has a mouthful of cereal and sunglasses on inside his fucking frat room when he sets his cell phone on top of a pile of books and FaceTimes the only person who probably won’t make him want to die or commit murder.

She picks up on the second ring.

“You look terrible,” Natasha says by way of greeting.

“Thanks, I’m going to get that engraved on my tombstone after I die of this migraine,” Bucky says.

“On a scale of one to your normal, that’s Stark levels of dramatic,” Natasha says. There’s loud, random noises going on in the background. She frowns, covers the camera lens, yells something in Russian, and then returns to Bucky.

“First of all, that’s uncalled for and frankly, rude,” Bucky says. He takes another mouthful of Cap’n Crunch. “Second of all, what the hell are you doing?"  
  
“Pepper thought it would be nice to bake for the potential new pledges,” Natasha says dryly, with an eyeroll.

“Does she know they don’t eat in sororities?” Bucky says through a mouth full of cereal, like a neanderthal. Natasha looks unimpressed. He swallows. “That’s like, a rule.  
  
“She’s aware,” Natasha says. “Maria and I have both told her she’s wasting her time, but does she listen?”

“Have you tried telling her not in Russian?” Bucky offers.

“Cute,” Natasha replies. She looks at him through the phone and the look is so distinctly displeased that Bucky nearly flinches. “Did you call for a particular reason or is it just to harass me with your ugliness?”  
  
“Rude,” Bucky says and runs a hand through his drying hair. “I know I’m cute. No, I need intel.”

“Loki is so far off my radar, I wouldn’t have any intel for you if I wanted to,” Natasha says.

Bucky frowns immediately, studiously ignoring the pang of hurt that twists in his chest at the thought of his now ex.

“I’m not crazy, Nat,” he says instead. He sighs and fiddles with the ends of his hair.

Natasha seems to soften at that.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “Really. That wasn’t okay for him to do.”

“He was trying to take me aside, but I wasn’t listening,” Bucky sighs again. “I’ll be okay. It just. Sucks, you know?”

“I know,” Natasha says, kindly. “I know you liked him. I don’t really understand why, but I know you did.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I don’t know. He was hot and interesting. We had fun.”

“Until you didn’t.”  
  
“I guess,” Bucky replies and tries desperately not to sound as hurt as he feels. He takes a moment to swallow that and shakes his head. This isn’t why he called Nat. Bucky’s break up is something that occurred, but it’s something that he is choosing to ignore until he possibly can’t anymore. It’s all very healthy; so healthy that he’s positive he can never tell his therapist about it.

“So what intel?” Natasha prompts after a few seconds of silence.

“Oh!” Bucky nods, rallying. He finally shifts his sunglasses to the top of his head so he can look Natasha in the eyes. “Rogers. What do you have on him?”

“I heard about the bet,” Natasha says and she’s immediately back to being disapproving.

“I don’t need the lecture, just the intel,” Bucky says, raising a hand.

She glowers at him for a second and then carefully tucks a red curl behind her ear.

“Most of it you know or can parse out. Art geek, environmental nutjob, way too active on campus, the kid’s a part of more clubs and causes than can feasibly fit into one human week, not that it stops him,” she says. “Two jobs, one at the library, one at Pym’s Pizza. He’s like an overextended, energetic, frail witch. You could knock him over with the common cold.”  

That makes Bucky frown. He knows, objectively, that Rogers is tiny, but he’s always so mad and loud and active on campus that he seems to take up more space and life than he probably actually does.

“He’s sick?”

“Always,” Natasha nods. “Seems like he has a bunch of ailments, but it’s not really my place to say. He’s a complete mess. But I’ve never heard a bad thing about him.  
  
Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“He seems like a good kid, Barnes,” Natasha stares at him. “Don’t break him.”

“I’m not Rumlow,” Bucky complains.

“No,” Natasha says. “You’re just picking on an innocent kid as a bet with him.”  
  
“I’m not picking on him!” Bucky protests. “I’m making him class president. It’ll be an honor. He can add another club to his resume. He’ll probably thank me for it later.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Natasha growls at him and Bucky’s not entirely sure what she’s warning him against, if it’s specifically about Rogers or about the bet or about his life in general. Her eyes flash and she seems to grow, somehow, like a red-headed, Russian Galadriel, but then she shrinks back down to normal size and sighs. “Just be careful. People aren’t playthings or bets. They have feelings.”

“Do you have feelings?” Bucky blinks at her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Natasha says. “I’m Russian.”

Bucky snorts and fixes his hair again. Then he sighs and nods.

“I’ll be careful,” he says. “No being an idiot.”

Natasha snorts at that.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Just then, there’s a huge crash and clatter, followed by exasperated shouting, behind her. Natasha glares off-screen and releases a stream of Russian curses.

“Gotta go,” she says. She looks back at Bucky for a brief second. “Get a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and cry your feelings into a carton of ice cream tonight. Whatever you’re doing--it’s not healthy. You’re starting to develop dark circles. Also there’s a zit on your cheek. Bye.”

Bucky blinks at his phone as Natasha ends the call. Then, with a curse himself, he scrambles to his mirror to do something about the zit situation.  

  
Bucky manages to drink enough coffee to trick his hangover into retreating for exactly the amount of time it takes for him to dress and assemble his hair into the sort of devastating coiff that generally has both men and women unable to keep their hands off of him. He wouldn't say that his _entire_ plan rests on charming his way into Steve's good graces with perfectly placed hair and a smile that creeps into his thoughts at night, but that is certainly a good portion of the plan and the rest, well, Bucky thinks he can make up as he assesses the situation.

He squints at the keys in his hands as he tries to remember which job Steve said he would be at this afternoon and decides after some internal deliberation and a hazy recollection of everything that occurred before he had tipped back four shots of post-heartbreak tequila, that Steve is most likely to be at Pym's Pizza.

Pym's is just a few blocks past the edge of campus, which is an easy enough walk, even half-hungover and recently wired on a veritable IV drip of coffee. Bucky sticks his hands in his pockets and greets about half of the campus population on his way over while silently considering the identity masking merits of the baseball caps his father gets him at the start of every baseball season. He decides that risking hat hair far outweighs any positive masking merit and starts contemplating those Halloween Scream masks instead. On the one hand, people might mistake him for a serial killer, but on the other hand, he bets no one would look at him with those fake pitying eyes either.

He would ask how half of the campus population already knows about his break up, but, well, he's voluntarily participating in Greek life in college and Tony Stark can't keep his mouth shut for shit.

Bucky makes a mental note to find better friends before he casually steps up the concrete to a strip of shops, which include a nail salon, a shitty bar, a noodle shop, a store deeply dedicated to college paraphernalia, and Pym's Pizza. Pym's is the brights of the strip, with a bright red awning and PYM'S PIZZA written in loud, yellow letters. Pym's objectively has the best pizza closest to campus, which means every college student has eaten at least one drunken slice of Pym's campus-famous triple cheese pizza.

There's a group of three women who are entering the store in front of him, which gives Bucky time to peer around their shoulders to make sure the object of his Betffections is, indeed, working. There's a line to the door of students awaiting lunch-time $1.50 slices, but Bucky thinks he sees a harassed looking mop of blond hair at the counter.

The line moves quickly despite the rush and Bucky barely has time to look around at the clean white-and-red interior of the store that supplies him with the majority of his caloric intake on any given weekend. There are small, round red tables with small, round red vinyl seats lining one side of the small store. Pym's is popular enough that almost every seat is taken, with a mixture of old students and new students with their parents. Bucky almost lets out a sigh of relief when he doesn't see anyone who would recognize him, although there's at least one group of young women who are eyeing him with unconcealed interest.

He gives them some semblance of his usual charming smile and considers running a hand through his hair just for the cause when the group of girls in front of him finish picking out their slices. They move to the side and Bucky finds himself face-to-face with the grumpiest looking college student he has ever seen. He's short and his hair is sticking up at all odd angles and his face is a little red and he has a little line between his blond eyebrows, like he's trying to keep it together, but he's one slice of pepperoni pizza away from clocking someone's brains out.

It's Steve, of course.

Steve looks so tired and frazzled that he barely processes who's in front of him.

"What can I get you?" he asks, sounding a little bland and a lot stressed at the exact same time. His head manages to reach over the register, but only enough for his bright blue eyes to look Bucky straight in the nose.

"A slice of pizza?" Bucky says with a grin.

"Yes, but what kind?" Steve asks exasperatedly and it's only when Bucky rests his hands on the counter and leans forward to better look at Steve that his expression changes. If he had been harassed and half-asleep before, he's now harassed and borderline-enraged. Or maybe a little flummoxed, Bucky doesn't know him well enough yet to tell. "You!"

"Me!" Bucky agrees and his grin widens. "I told you I liked pizza!"

"No," Steve says and that pinched look between his eyebrows grows, somehow, even more pinched.

"No?" Bucky asks. "I don't like pizza?"

"No to you," Steve says. "I don't accept this."

"You don't accept me liking pizza?" Bucky cocks his head just so and only barely keeps the amusement out of his tone.

"I don't accept your--existence," Steve says and Bucky genuinely has to laugh at that. Steve scowls in response. "What are you doing here?"

Bucky raises an eyebrow.

"You're going to make me say the thing about the pizza again, huh?"

"This is my place of work," Steve says slowly. "Is this some fraternity prank? I don't have time for this, I have to sell pizza."

"Do you?" Bucky asks. He's still leaning forward over the counter and now he gets so close to Steve that the other boy has to lean back away from him. He definitely looks flummoxed this time.

"...yes?"

"You're not very good at it," Bucky grins.

"Excuse me?" 

"I've been trying to order pizza for minutes and all you've offered me is an existential crisis," Bucky says.

"That's our daily special," Steve says. "Order a slice of the triple cheese and get a philosophical debate for free."

Bucky looks positively delighted by this.

"Is the philosophical debate whether anything is really free?" he asks. "Because I have opinions."

"Yes," Steve says automatically and then catches himself. He shakes his head. "No. No, no, no. I'm too busy for this. Order your pizza. I will literally give you any pizza you want to leave."

"But what about the special--" Bucky starts and Steve all but shoves a menu in his face.

Bucky stifles a laugh and takes a hold of the menu.

"Are you asking me to dine in?" he asks, smile growing wider and brighter.

"What?" Steve blanches. "No."

"Well this is moving really fast and all, but I think I can make that kinda commitment," Bucky says.

"Absolutely not," Steve says. "We don't take sitting customers."

"There are literally customers sitting and eating right now."

"They're fake," Steve says. "We paid them. They're paid actors."

"Are they getting paid in pizza?" Bucky asks eagerly. "Can I get hired? I like pizza."

"Oh my god," Steve breathes out. He's looking at Bucky as though he's some kind of horrifying sea creature, which honestly is so pleasing and hilarious to Bucky that it almost makes him forget that Steve Rogers is a weird sea creature himself who was only picked out by Tony Stark and Brock Rumlow to ruin Bucky's life and reputation. Anyway, Bucky is really hungover, so he needs a slice of Pym's one way or another.

"Please," Steve whispers. "Just take a slice. There's a line out the door. You're shutting down the store. I'm going to get fired and Pym's is going to go out of business because you won't just buy a slice of pizza and leave."

"Aww, Stevie," Bucky says. "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

"That's not my name," Steve says automatically. "I'm giving you two slices of pepperoni and a slice of the triple cheese and if you don't leave I'm going to throw a deep dish at you."

"This is five star service," Bucky says. "I'll be leaving my thoughts on Yelp."

Steve ignores Bucky and piles all three of the aforementioned slices into a sturdy cardboard box that says PYM'S PIZZA across the top just above a little cartoon wasp happily eating a slice of pizza.

"That'll be $4.50," Steve says.

Bucky hands him a 10 with a smooth smile and Steve looks at him with pure disgust.

"Keep the change," Bucky says as he takes the box. "This has been delightful. See you later, Stevie!"

"That's not my name," Steve says. "And we will most certainly not."

Bucky nearly cackles as he walks past the line toward the door with his cardboard box of pizza, purposefully wiggling his ass as he does so, just in case Steve happens to be watching.

  
* * * *

Steve is falling asleep in the stacks.

He’s usually better at keeping one or both of his eyes open at one or both of his jobs, but the air conditioning has been broken in his room since he and Sam moved back in and any potential nighttime breeze is little more than sporadic gusts of humidity, which leave him sticky and sometimes gasping for his inhaler and almost never cooled down enough to sleep through the night. Anyway, this is his fourth straight day of working double shifts between the library and Pym’s, since school hasn’t started yet and he’s trying to get in as many hours as he can, and he vaguely suspects that he’s still hung over from that party. It doesn’t help that it’s 9 in the morning and he woke up at 6 in the morning, hoping to finally start work in his art corner, not that he had managed that either, but he had taken a shower and then a Buzzfeed quiz and one thing led to another and he was down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about exactly how inbred the royal families of Europe _were_ before he had looked up at the clock, yelped, and run out of his apartment half-frazzled and without coffee to sustain him.

The point being he’s putting away books this morning and the library is still so sleepy and quiet that Steve’s leaning his forehead against a row of reference books about Marxism and closing his eyes, just for a moment, when he hears a loud and cheerful voice behind him.

“Hey there, I was wondering if you could help me find a book!”

Steve suppresses a sigh because he’s so tired his muscles are aching with it and all he had wanted was momentary respite from the tragedy of being, you know, awake. But he does technically have a job to be doing and part of the job, for which he gets paid his meager work study salary, is to help college students find the textbooks they’re going to look at just long enough to get their papers written the night before they’re due.

Steve puts away the large Marxist tome he’s in the stacks for and turns around--to find an increasingly familiar head of outrageously good brown hair on top of a too-cheerful and stupidly handsome and exceptionally irritating face.

“Are you lost?” Steve asks.

“In your eyes, yeah,” Bucky says dreamily and then, when Steve looks like he’s going to throw the entire collection of Lenin discourse at him, he laughs. “I’m kidding!”

“It’s too early for this,” Steve grumbles and presses his palms against his eyes. “Do you know how early it is?”

“Too, I’m guessing,” Bucky says.

“Are you stalking me?” Steve looks up, squinting at him skeptically.

“It’s a library, Steve,” Bucky says with a kind of nonchalant snort. “It’s public, kinda. Also I pay for it through my student activities fees.”

“The semester hasn’t even started,” Steve says with a frown. “What could you possibly want a book for?”

That makes Bucky laugh again. It’s annoying because it’s 9 am and Steve is falling asleep, but when Bucky laughs, it kind of lights up his entire face. He closes his eyes and they crinkle at the side and his mouth gets wide and it kinda looks like all of it is going to burst into sunlight or something. Steve hates it. He makes a solemn swear to never make Bucky Barnes laugh again.

“I can read,” Bucky says. He seems amused despite himself. “They make sure to teach us after we pledge a frat.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Steve mutters under his breath. Then he sighs and straightens. “What book? You can’t check out reference books.”

“I know how a library works, Steve,” Bucky rolls his eyes. There’s something so surreal about Bucky Barnes not only knowing, but saying his name that Steve just blinks at him. “It’s actually fiction.”

“Okay,” Steve says and then immediately frowns. “But I’m in the reference stacks. You won’t find fiction here--” And then Steve squints at Bucky again. “Hey wait, how did you find me over here?”

Bucky just smiles wider.

“I’m looking for a science fiction book. I’ve read through all of mine, but I can’t seem to find the one I’m looking for.”

“I mean this is a college library, we mostly specialize in textbooks and old issues of academic encyclopedias that no one’s read since the 1930s,” Steve says. He runs a hand through his hair and frowns at the flop of blond that strays into his eyes. “But the fiction’s on the third floor.”

“I need help,” Bucky says. He makes his eyes absurdly large and has the audacity to stick his bottom lip out just so. “Help me, Steve.”

Steve stares at him, torn between being absolutely certain that he’s being set up on some kind of campus prank television show and having the ground move unsteadily below his feet.

“You’re so annoying,” Steve says. “Does everyone know you’re this annoying?”

Bucky shrugs.

“You get away with a lot when you have good hair.”  
  
“I see that,” Steve says, eyeing the perfect brown coif.

Immediately, Bucky flashes him a grin.

“You think my hair is good?”

Immediately, Steve glowers.

“No. It’s hair. It’s brown. Do you want a gold star for genetics?”

For some reason that makes Bucky’s smile flicker. It’s almost undetectable, but since Steve’s staring at Bucky’s face, it’s hard not to notice.

“Just the book will do for now,” Bucky says. Maybe Steve’s imagining it, but his voice sounds a little less enthusiastic than it had a moment ago, perhaps slightly more strained. Steve can’t imagine why.

Bucky doesn’t seem to move, despite Steve’s best efforts to look through the cart of books next to him in order to continue stacking and Steve can only take so much persistent hovering before it starts to crawl under his skin.

Finally, he gives up, with a sigh that sounds like all of the air has deflated from inside his limbs.

“All right,” he says. “Follow me. But I swear to god if I find out you can’t read, I’m going to be so pissed.”

Bucky doesn’t exactly reply to this, but he does laugh out loud again and Steve has to internally curse because it almost makes him smile, but also his solemn swear to himself had lasted all of maybe five minutes.

Curse Bucky Barnes, he thinks, only slightly dramatically. And curse whoever brought this accursed fate upon him.

  
The rest of Steve’s shift is significantly less interesting. There are a few students who wander in to see if the library’s carrying the textbooks they need for the semester so they can get away with copying chapters instead of shelling out a couple of hundred bucks per book, and there are a handful of terrified looking freshmen and stressed pre-med students, all of whom are trying to get ahead of their reading before they inevitably fall behind. Sam stops by once to tell Steve some soccer team gossip he immediately forgets and then a small, scary redhead flits through the door while Steve’s at the counter and asks him some cryptic questions that have nothing to do with books and disappears back out the door, looking strangely satisfied, but the library’s relatively silent after that.

Steve gets some stacking done and spends the rest of the time sketching out ideas for his advanced art seminar in a new notebook Sam got him for his birthday. He’s finished most of his general education credits by this point and is elbows deep in different art classes, which he finds creatively fulfilling, but also a little stressful. There are a few he’s taking for the experimentation and development of it all--a class on forms and figures, a class on color theory, and a class on graphic design, just in case he actually feels like earning a stable salary one day--and those allow him to breathe and work with his hands or his brain in a way that helps take off the edge he’s almost always carrying with him. 

It’s his advanced painting class that has his head in the clouds and his fingernails nearly chewed to the roots. He had taken intermediate watercolor and painting at the beginning of his sophomore year, which had simultaneously been the best and most difficult course he had ever taken. Professor Erskine had been kind and encouraging and so difficult to impress that Steve had often stayed at the studio until late into the night, trying to create _something_ that felt like it would please the man.

It was never anything that he overtly said--on the contrary, Professor Erskine never had anything but positive things to say about Steve’s work, but it was the way in which he looked at Steve’s paintings and reacted, as though there could be more there if Steve could just grasp what it was that the professor was looking for. It had made Steve feel helpless and frustrated more than once, but at the end of the year Erskine had taken him aside, put his hands on Steve’s shoulders, and asked him to take the selective advanced seminar with him the following year.

This leaves Steve somewhat in a state of confusion, which has his notebook doodles messy with manifested anxiety.

A new work study student named Peter comes to relieve Steve of his shift sometime in the late afternoon and they make the customary small talk for a few minutes with the immediate realization that neither of them will become best friends anytime soon, but that they will probably form some kind of work alliance against Mr. Phillips, the head librarian, who is known for his dragon-like temper and unceasing faith in the MLA citation style.

Steve packs his things and blearily rubs his eyes as he leaves the library for the fresh, outside air, a luxury he hasn’t had the privilege of breathing in for a good seven hours. His stomach grumbles angrily at him and he realizes, as he often does, that it is now at least four hours past lunch time and all he’s eaten is a single cup of coffee and a protein bar that he found stashed in his backpack, which he certainly didn’t have the foresight to put in himself, but which Sam, his blessed best friend and World’s Greatest Roommate, probably put there last night because, in his own words, _you would goddamn die without me, Rogers_.

Steve is scratching at his nose, his brain fuzzy with half-imagined paintings and the certain knowledge that Sam is probably right, and walking across the grassy stretch of lawn in front of the library, when he sees a familiar figure coming down the sidewalk to the right.

The figure is clothed in a familiar tweed jacket with patches at the elbows and Steve can almost smell the ever-present smell of turpentine off of him. Professor Erskine adjusts his glasses as he sees Steve and approaches him with a kind wave and a broad smile.

“Mr. Rogers,” he greets him and shifts the leather briefcase he’s carrying from one hand to the other. “I see you’re back for more torture.”

“Hi Professor,” Steve greets him. He tries to swallow the brain fuzziness and ignore the slightly sharp pang of anxiety that stabs his stomach at the sigh of his favorite art professor. “I am. If I’m going to be honest, it’s more than a little your fault.”

Professor Erskine’s smile stretches wider and his eyes crinkle at the corners in amusement. He’s so affable and unrelentingly kind that Steve has to tell himself he’s being ridiculous by feeling anxious at all.

“I wish I could promise you it will be worth it,” Professor Erskine says. “But that depends entirely on you.”

Steve feels Erskine’s kind and scrutinizing gaze on him and tries not to squirm.

“Have you been painting this summer?” The professor asks after a moment when Steve fails to say anything further.

“I--” Steve opens his mouth and closes it.

His stomach twists uncomfortably. It’s maybe cliche to say that he’s been feeling blocked and it’s not that exactly. He spent the summer working and dreaming and feeling frustrated and angry, but none of those feelings properly translated to anything he tried to work on. He would start a painting and then stop, start again and then stop, unsatisfied with anything he put on canvas. In the end, he had a handful of sketches and pastel drawings to account for his summer, but nothing he could show Professor Erskine.

Steve gives Erskine a half smile.

“--I was gathering inspiration,” he says finally, a bit lamely.

Professor Erskine, his head scarce of hair, but eyebrows bushy enough to be compassionate or judging, given the proper circumstance and internal monologue, seems to know exactly what Steve is and is not saying.

“There is inspiration everywhere,” he says. “It won’t do to search for it like the holy grail. Sometimes you have to just feel something in here--” Professor Erskine taps the spot above his heart. “--and see what comes out on the canvas.”

Steve feels like he’s trying to tell him something, but can’t quite grasp it. He’s going to tear his stupid blond hair out if he disappoints this strange, brilliant man one more time.

“Understood, sir,” he says.

“It’s not about understanding, Mr. Rogers. It’s about feeling.” Professor Erskine gives him another smile. “If I can give you one terribly cliche assignment--stop looking for inspiration everywhere else.”

Erskine leans forward and taps two fingers against Steve’s temple.

“You use this,” he says. Then he taps the same two fingers against Steve’s chest. “Try using this instead.”

Steve doesn’t look, well, _skeptical_ exactly, but he looks somewhat confused and Erskine laughs.

“I know how it sounds. But trust me.” Professor Erskine nods at Steve before shifting the briefcase to his other hand again. “I expect great things from you, Mr. Rogers. See you in class.”

Steve manages to give Erskine a nod back, which is nothing short of a miracle because even if he knew exactly what Erskine was trying to tell him, he has no idea how to pursue it.

  
By the time Steve gets back to his apartment, he’s not only frustrated, he’s starving too. He grumpily piles his backpack onto the floor of his room and dumps his useless notebook of useless sketches on his way to the kitchen. He rummages through their mostly empty fridge and comes away with a disgusting container of lactose-free yogurt and a tub of fruit salad and he’s in the middle of tearing into both of them when Sam comes in through the door.

He’s sweaty and dirty in his soccer uniform and he takes one look at Steve from where he is and grins brightly.

“Aw yeah, fruit! Gimme!”

“You smell,” Steve complains and hands over the container of fruit.

“I smell like a man,” Sam says and opens a drawer to find another fork. “A manly man who does manly things, like running seven miles for fun.”

“Have I ever told you I’m deeply concerned for your well-being?” Steve asks and takes a spoonful of his terrible yogurt. “Mental well-being, I mean.”

“Is this the first meal you’ve eaten today?” Sam asks through a mouthful of berries.

“No,” Steve answers cagily.

“Was your only other meal the protein bar I put in your backpack last night?” Sam returns.

Steve stuffs another spoonful of yogurt in his mouth.

“That’s what I thought,” Sam smirks.

“Whatever. Just because I would die without your constant supervision doesn’t mean you’re not suspect for putting yourself through the torture we like to call physical activity,” Steve says. He motions for the fruit back and Sam begrudgingly hands it over. “How was practice?”

“Good,” Sam says. “Real practice isn’t until Monday, but some of us are back, so we mostly put in hours at the gym and ran some miles. Played a few rounds of monkey in the middle, that kinda thing.”

“How’s the team?” Steve asks. Sam hadn’t been on the soccer team the year before because he had been focused on his JROTC requirements, but he’d been good enough that someone from the team saw him during some recreational soccer game and had him try out near the end of the year. He now plays as a center back, whatever the hell that means.

“Seems solid enough,” Sam says. He leans against the kitchen counter and Steve briefly relinquishes his meal to get him one of the bottles of water cooling in the fridge. “Thanks, appreciate it. The captains seem cool. There’s two of them and they seem to be taking turns or whatever supervising. T’Challa--you’ve heard of him--was leading today. The other one’s Barnes.”

Steve’s face seems to spasm, which he dutifully ignores.

“There’s some douchebag named Rumlow. Not into that,” Sam says after chugging half the bottle of water. “And--oh yeah, Clint Barton? He said he knew you.”

“Oh yeah!” Steve brightens at that. Clint Barton’s a complete mess of a human who constantly trips over his own two feet and has perpetual coffee stains on his shirt. He’s worked shifts at Pym’s with Steve for the past year. “Wait--Clint’s on the soccer team? He falls over if he tries to carry two delivery orders at the same time.”

Sam snorts at that and finishes his water.

“Yeah, well. He’s a hell of a striker, apparently,” he says. “Responsible for about two thirds of the goals the team scored last year. His numbers are insane. He’s like some crazy sharpshooter with a ball at his feet.”

Steve tries to reconcile the image of the Clint he knows in his head with this new information and gives up after a moment of straining his brain too hard.

“When’s your first game?” he asks instead. He takes another spoonful of yogurt and sighs. He needs to go grocery shopping and buy like, a loaf of bread or something.

“Dude, you gotta stop buying that shit,” Sam says after he’s demolished half of his water bottle in one swallow. “I can’t watch you suffer through another container of it.”

“Yogurt is good for you!” Steve protests.

“You hate yogurt,” Sam says.

“Well, that isn’t untrue,” Steve allows.

That makes Sam snort and roll his eyes at the same time.

“In two weeks. We play home for the first three games this season and then we’re off traveling,” Sam says. He finishes the water bottle and puts it down on the counter. “You gonna come to some games?”

Steve wrinkles his nose. He has many opinions about organized sports, all of them bad. He has a difficult time reconciling how he thinks sports are a stupid, brainless cult and how much he thinks it’s bullshit that colleges profit off of the backs of college athletes without giving them just or proportionate compensation. He’s debated himself into a corner more than once before and has since given up paying attention to that sphere of human existence altogether.

But, on the other hand, Sam does keep him alive.

“I’ll try,” he says, which is the best he can offer.

“You can ask Peggy,” Sam says and suggestively and ludicrously waggles his eyebrows up and down.

Steve groans at that, nearly faceplanting into his disgusting yogurt.

“I told you there’s nothing going on between us!” he croaks out.

“You’ve been pining for her since you saw her freshman year,” Sam says like the traitorous best friend he is.

“That’s over!” Steve says.

“You made out with her at the end of the year…” Sam sounds both admonishing and amused, which is unfair.

“We were drunk!” Steve splutters. “I’m over it! She’s over it! We’re cool! I’m so cool!”

Sam sticks an entire pineapple chunk in his mouth to show Steve what he thinks about such proclamations.

“Uh huh,” he says after a meaningful swallow. “You think about what you’ve done. I’m gonna go shower.”

“Finally,” Steve says and painfully finishes his yogurt. “My nose was about to fall off.”

Sam flips him off and pushes off from the counter.

“Thanks for the fruit,” he says. “Dinner later?”

“You mean you’re gonna make dinner for us later?” Steve asks brightly.

Don’t get him wrong, Steve can make a mean pot of spaghetti, but it is, unfortunately, one of the three things he can make, including grilled cheese sandwiches, taco bowls, and macaroni and cheese. All standard fare for starving college students with little to no skill and even less time, but Sam’s father taught him how to cook, so he can make something that isn’t impossible for Steve to digest.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam says with an eye roll.

“Love you!” Steve calls after him as he disappears into his room.

“Come to a game then!” Sam shouts back at him.

Sports, Steve thinks with a sigh to himself. In this fascist and rapidly disintegrating world, who has time to play a sport?

  
Steve cleans the kitchen, takes a shower after Sam, and even manages to take a nap before his shift at Pym’s that evening. He likes working at Pym’s, generally speaking. Steve’s not the best driver upstate New York has to offer, so Hank usually puts him on counter duty or has him help Scott make the pizzas as Clint takes orders. Clint has the night off, so it’s just Steve at the counter and Scott filching pieces of pepperoni when he thinks no one’s noticing. Steve’s told him more than once Hank’s going to kill him if he ever catches him, but every time he does Scott goes into some rambling monologue about his personal past as a petty thief and Steve ends up, eyes-glazed, staring at any spot just beyond Scott’s head that makes it seem like he’s looking at Scott when he’s looking at a spot beyond his head.

After the 6 and 7 pm rushes, Pym’s slows down and Steve uses that time to doodle and plan his semester in his head. He has to think about his art portfolio and what projects to plan for Art Society and when he’s going to work in protests and tables and for what and with whom. After living in New York City for the summer, he’s feeling some kind of way about recycling and water, because New York City smells like warm urine on the best of summer days and he had read something about dirty water in public housing, which made him angry, because it was like the country was hell-bent on punishing poor people for being poor and people needed water to _live_ and how the fuck did the government get away with essentially _poisoning_ communities of color, primarily, don’t get him even _started_ on Flint, Michigan, that could be solved easily by Elon Mus--

“Steve,” a voice says in front of him. “Earth to Steve.”

A pair of bright red nails snap in front of his face and he startles out of his angry reverie to find an amused and beautiful face staring at him.

“Went rather into your own head there, didn’t you?” Peggy asks with a laugh.

Peggy Carter, an English student doing her university degree in the United States, is one of the most nervewracklingly beautiful humans Steve has ever met. Every time she speaks to him, his heart does a weird little flutter thing, which makes him say stupid shit every once in a while, and what’s worse is that she speaks to him quite often because for inexplicable reasons, she had taken a liking to him freshman year and they had been friends ever since.

Steve had seen her in the dining hall two months into freshman year, sitting alone, reading a book, and seeing no other open tables, he had asked her if it would be okay to sit with her and she had said yes and he had asked her what she was reading and she had said _Crime and Punishment_ and he had made a face and she had asked why and he had said that he hated Dostoevsky and she had asked why and they had gotten into a debate during which they had both vehemently disagreed with each other and after that, she had kind of smiled at him and said “It has really been a pleasure to meet you, Steve Rogers,” and well they had been friends ever since.

Steve has also had a raging crush on her ever since, but that’s neither here nor there. He knows Peggy is light-years out of his league and anyway he likes their friendship too much to ruin it with romance.

Minus that whole making out bit at Angie Martinelli’s party at the end of sophomore year.

“I’m paying attention!” Steve says, blinking rapidly.

“Yes, to whatever diatribe you were having in your head,” Peggy says. “What were you angry about this time?”

Steve is loathe to admit his whole Flint inner ramble, but he can’t lie to Peggy so he smiles at her sheepishly while immediately ringing up her usual order--a small cheese pizza, thin crust, with a Pym Pam Pom salad and a Diet Coke.

“Water,” he says.

“What has water done now?” Peggy asks, clearly stifling a laugh. “Is it too refreshing? Simply too hydrating? Oh I know, you need it to live and that is so _aggravating._ ”

“Yeah, it’s a terrible drink,” Steve says. “0 out of 10 would not recommend.”

Peggy laughs this time, gently, a sound Steve has memorized.

“People deserve clean water,” Steve says after a moment. Peggy hands him cash and he counts out change for her. “It’s not right that we live where we do and there are still people drinking contaminated water. Not just people. Poor people. People of color.”

“I agree,” Peggy says. Sometimes when she looks at Steve, she looks amused. Other times, it’s like she’s never met anyone quite like him before. This is one of the latter and it makes Steve’s heart beat unfairly. “If I did not have access to clean water I--well, I could not imagine. I am quite privileged that way.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, a frown turning his mouth down at the corners. “Someone should be held accountable for it.”

“Who?” Peggy asks. She snaps her purse shut and steps back from the counter. Her brown curls are in a ponytail today and she’s wearing yoga pants and tank top that shows off her perfectly sculpted upper arms. She most likely stopped by on her way home from the gym.

“I don’t know,” Steve says. “The mayor? The governor. The president.”

“I do not think clean water is the least of what this president needs to be held accountable for,” Peggy says. “But yes. How can we help?”

Steve thinks about this while Scott prepares Peggy’s food in the kitchen. He leans against the counter, forward a little so he’s inched closer to her. Peggy’s face softens and Steve remembers holding it between his hands. They had both been drunk and happy and it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world, to make their mouths meet and keep meeting, her arms around his neck, his at her waist. She was taller than him, but it didn’t bother him and she kept laughing and he was drunk on it, that sound of Peggy laughing into his mouth. She tasted like vodka and strawberries and he hadn’t been able to rid himself of the taste since.

After, they hadn’t really talked about it. He still can’t tell if it meant anything to her or if it was one of those things; go to college, get drunk, and make out with one of your best friends. Hope she doesn’t hate you or figure out your feelings or, if she does, that she returns them.

“An awareness campaign,” Steve says after a moment. “We can raise money. Maybe a protest of some kind. We need to be visible on campus.”

“No one is as good at that as you are,” Peggy says softly. Without warning, she reaches forward, a palm at Steve’s cheek. She strokes the corner of his mouth and Steve thinks, for one, anxious moment, that she’s going to kiss him again. His heart nearly beats out of his chest.

Before she can move, though, Scott slides a pizza box and salad box through the open window to the kitchen.

“Pizza for Peggy! Oh, hi Peggy!” Scott beams through the open window and the moment passes.

Peggy withdraws her hand and Steve swallows his feelings to bag her order.

“Hi Scott,” Peggy smiles at him politely. “Are you excited for the school year?”

“Yeah!” Scott says brightly and starts rambling about his classes.

When Steve hands the bag of food over to her, he almost asks-- _do you remember that night? We were drunk and we pretend like it never happened, but it was the best night of my life._

But he doesn’t manage the nerve and Peggy simply smiles at him and takes her food.

“I will see you in class on Monday, Steve,” she says.

 _Did it mean anything to you?_ he thinks and doesn’t have an answer.

Steve watches her go, his heart sinking a little. It should be easy, he thinks. It should be easier than this, to be in love with your best friend.

  
When Steve wakes up Monday morning, he thinks it must be a mistake. His phone alarm blares at him and he blearily opens his eyes to turn it off, checks the time, and sees that it’s _6:45 am_ , which can’t be right, because why on God’s good planet would he be awake at 6:45 am?

Then he hears Sam singing in the shower and remembers _oh dear god, it’s that time. It’s time for school._

  
Of all of the stupid ideas Steve has ever had, taking an 8:30 am political science class was high on the list. Top 10 stupid things for sure, he thinks as he scarfs down a bowl of oatmeal and two mugs of coffee that Sam had the foresight to make when he had woken up at _6 am to go to soccer practice what the fuck_ , God bless his insane best friend, and somehow stumbles out of his apartment door at exactly 8:10 am, with his backpack slung haphazardly over his shoulders. He isn’t able to say with any real conviction that he had remembered to throw his laptop and the correct textbook in there, but he knows that there is at least a backpack on his back and that seems about as much as anyone can ask of him on the first day of school at 8:10 am.

 

It takes him 10 minutes to get to class, which makes him slightly less sore about the amount in rent he and Sam are paying for their apartment. The political science lecture, a mid-level class on politics and the media, which had sounded interesting in the course catalog and, more importantly, helps fulfill some credit that Steve had forgotten to take in his first two years, is in a small lecture hall, one of those that slopes down to the the professor’s podium like some kind of academic coliseum.

Steve likes to sit in the aisle seat near the middle of the room, close enough to the professor to pay attention, but far enough that if he starts sketching instead, he’s not going to get called on to answer questions in retaliation.

He sets his things down, takes his aisle seat, and pulls open his backpack. It’s a moment of relief and triumph to see a laptop and a political science textbook in his backpack, although somehow there’s also two sketchpads, his case of pastels, two protein bars, and a pair of socks. Steve has no memory of putting half of these things into his backpack, but now is not the time to question his unconscious tendencies.

He takes out his laptop and starts it, drumming on his desk with his fingertips as it loads. Halfway through a rousing rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, Steve feels someone slide into the seat next to him.

“This seat taken?” a horribly, unfortunately, familiar voice asks him brightly.

“Are you _kidding me_?” Steve says loudly--too loudly, at least three people turn in their seats to stare at him--and turns to see Bucky Barnes, bright-eyed, awake, and infuriatingly chipper for _8:25 am_.

“Hi Stevie,” Bucky says with a broad smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“First of all, that’s not my name,” Steve says immediately. “Secondly, what’s the point in asking someone if a seat is taken if you sit down before they can answer?”

“I’m sensing there’s a thirdly,” Bucky says.

“And _thirdly_ ,” Steve says, glaring at him. “Are you stalking me?”

“Okay,” Bucky says and holds up one finger. He starts ticking through Steve’s protests, one by one. “Your name is Steve, so that’s basically Stevie. It’s like--if someone’s name is like, Nicholas. Why wouldn’t you call them Nick? It’s stupid to have a name that’s nicknamable but not use that nickname, like, what a waste of an opportunity.”

“You say that because your name is literally _Bucky_ ,” Steve says.

“ _Second_ , no one was in the seat, so I took liberties,” Bucky says, ignoring Steve. “And thirdly, no. I’m a political science major. So it is you who is stalking me, Steven.”

“Ugh, how is that worse than Stevie?” Steve makes the mistake of groaning out loud because Bucky looks like Christmas has come early. “And that’s not how stalking works.”

“Oh really,” Bucky says carefully. “Do you know a lot about stalking, Stevie?”

“What--” Steve blinks.

“It’s just you’ve mentioned stalking a number of times now and now you’re telling me rules for proper stalking,” Bucky says.

“No, I’m not--”

“So that might lead one to conclude that it is you, and not I, who is the stalker,” Bucky says cheerily.

“I’m not stalking you!” Steve splutters.

“I don’t know,” Bucky says. “Potato, potato.”

“You just pronounced those words the exact same way,” Steve oggles at him.

“Tomato, tomato,” Bucky says, doing it again.

“Oh, my god,” Steve says. He thinks--he thinks he’s going insane. He thinks Bucky Barnes is driving him insane. “Is this a hazing thing? I’m not in your fraternity, Barnes.”

Bucky wrinkles his nose.

“Please call me Bucky,” he says.

“Surely you have someone else to harass,” Steve says. “There’s thousands of other people in this school.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says with a wink. “But only one who’s stalking me.”

“I’m _not_ \--” Steve starts, flushing, and Bucky looks like he’s on the verge of laughing, the absolute asshole, when the door opens in the back and the Professor comes in.

“Oh look,” Bucky says, pleasantly. “Time to start the semester.”

“ _This isn’t over_ ,” Steve hisses at him as the professor starts writing his name on the board.

Bucky takes the liberty to lean closer to him, so close that if Steve had remembered to recoil, as he should have, he wouldn’t have smelled grass and powdery soap and body spray or felt a slip of hair brush against his cheekbones. But Steve momentarily forgets himself, so he inhales something that is pleasantly, overwhelmingly green and fresh and has to brush away a soft, ticklish strand.

“No,” Bucky says softly, all pleased smiles. “No, it isn’t.”

Steve feels cross and weird all at once, but the professor starts speaking, so he just moves away and starts taking notes, aware, all the time, that Bucky Barnes is sitting right next to him.

  
The strange thing is that although Steve can’t quite shake how hyperaware he is about the person next to him, Bucky seems to forget Steve is there at all once the professor starts speaking. Professor Danvers is whip smart and funny and extremely engaging and Bucky leans forward in his seat every time she says something insightful or that makes him laugh. Sometimes she’ll share a fact or make some lame political science joke that only gets a smattering of awkward college student laughter, but Bucky will shake in his seat from laughter or grin or nearly throw his head back and laugh. Learning next to Bucky Barnes is almost impossible, he’s such an unbearably vibrant entity.

Steve thumbs through the syllabus as Professor Danvers goes through it, but Bucky is taking diligent notes, nodding his head at certain points, and looking thoughtful at other parts. At some point, when Steve has almost completely lost control of his focus and is just staring at Bucky staring intently at his paper, Professor Danvers explains the requisite term paper and Bucky raises a hand.

“Yes?” Professor Danvers looks up from her podium and at Bucky. “Mr.--Barnes?”

“Bucky,” Bucky says brightly.

“Bucky,” the Professor nods kindly. “You have a question?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It says the term paper has to be 10-15 pages on a topic of our own choosing, as long as it applies the analytic techniques we learn in the course. If we wanted to develop our topics further, could they form the basis for a capstone paper?”

“I don’t see why not,” Professor Danvers says. “I’m willing to take on a few capstone students, for those interested. But I’ll warn I’m tough. If you’re going to work with me, you’re going to work hard and you’re going to turn in excellent quality work. Come talk to me after class if you want to explore this as an option.”

Bucky nods his head and starts vigorously writing something down at the top of the page. Steve can’t help but look over and he sees, in surprisingly neat cursive, _the effect of moderate and reactionary media propaganda on the creation and propagation of an authoritarian state? Explore the difference between old print and slow media with fast-moving social media? Journalist biases--? News gatekeeping and FRAMING. WHO GIVES US THE NEWS? What is “neutrality” in a fascist state?_

Steve blinks, feels his head spin just a little bit. He looks back up at the board and tries to listen to Professor Danvers as she finishes going through the syllabus and starts on very introductory principles of politics and the media.

“What are the different forms of media people use to consume political content?” Professor Danvers asks.

Somehow, unsurprisingly, Bucky’s hand goes up next to him.

“Mr. B--Bucky,” Professor Danvers says with a smile. “No need to raise your hand. This is going to be a collaborative classroom. Share your thoughts and answers freely. I only ask you be respectful of others.”

Steve feels Bucky’s shoulders relax. He doesn’t see him smile, but he can nearly feel it roll off of him.

Is Bucky Barnes a lowkey school nerd?

Steve swallows and starts doodling at the corner of his page. Next to him, Bucky happily answers the professor’s question.

This is terrible, no good, very bad information.

Steve considers transferring classes. He still has a week left in the add/drop period. He’ll keep that open as an option.

  
After class is over, Steve shuts down his laptop and starts packing his things, ready to run across campus for a quick coffee before his color theory class. Next to him, Bucky picks up his syllabus and gets up excitedly.

“Wasn’t that great?” he asks, smiling broadly. “I took introduction to political science with Professor Danvers my freshman year and the class was so big I never spoke, but she was--I mean she knows her stuff and she’s funny and interesting. It’s going to be a great class, I think. But I have to--oh shoot, there’s gonna be a line if I don’t go up. I have to go talk to her.”

Steve blinks at Bucky rapidly and Bucky’s almost out of the aisle on his way to the Professor when he stops and looks back at Steve.

“Oh,” he says, as though he’s forgotten something. “Are you working at Pym’s later?”

Steve is so taken off guard by the question he almost gives Bucky the truthful answer.

“No,” he manages, slightly flatly, too obviously panicked, just in time.

“Oh,” Bucky says and his smile dips for a moment. Then he nods. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow then, Steve! Have a good first day!”

Steve watches Bucky walk down the aisle, paper clutched in his hands, stupidly handsome face smiling, stupidly floppy hair flopping just out of its perfect coif.

Feeling annoyingly flustered, Steve puts his things away, slings his backpack over his shoulders again, and makes a beeline for his favorite coffee cart.

  
The first two days go by more quickly than Steve had anticipated they would. Between his classes, his library job, and Pym’s, he has more hours scheduled than he has planned for sleep, which is fine for the first week of school, but which he suspects will catch up to him at some point or another. Luckily, when Sam isn’t at class, he’s at soccer practice, which makes Steve miss his best friend, but thankfully not his best friend yelling at him for overextending himself as usual.

Steve studies in between classes and fills his sketchbooks with drawings that could lead to his final advanced painting project, but could just as easily be torn out and thrown in the trash. His drawings are fine, but he’s having a difficult time feeling anything about them. He draws his mother’s eyes over and over again, gets sad and frustrated, takes his antidepressants with a smoothie, and settles in with his political science textbook and his Frustrated With Life But Still Optimistic It’s Gonna Turn Around Spotify playlist. Every day is a little different, but with some variation of all of the above.

He gets to his advanced painting class on Thursday in a slightly tired and slightly wired mood. He had worked the late shift at Pym’s, gotten really into a murder podcast he binge-listened to three episodes of, and fallen asleep on his art desk around 4 in the morning. He’d woken up with a startled jump around 8 am, nearly drank the entire pot of coffee Sam had made, and run out the door to the library.

The library shift had been pretty quiet except for the middle of the morning when Steve had been dozing at the front desk and, in rapid succession, a skeptical redhead, Tony Stark, and Brock Freaking Rumlow had each passed through, each with a book to check out, and each staring at Steve so intensely he had wondered briefly if he’d spilled coffee down his shirt.

He had finished the shift in a daze, picked up another coffee and a bagel from his favorite coffee cart, and run into the art building.

The smell of fresh paint and turpentine greets him as he opens the door. Steve takes in a deep breath and immediately he feels somewhat less frenetic, like a wind up toy that’s come to the end of its motion.

Inside, there’s already three easels and canvases set up. Steve doesn’t recognize a Latina girl with multiple piercings in her ear or a white girl with jet black hair and a black leather jacket, an unimpressed scowl on her face. He does, however, recognize the boy with the inky hair and bright green eyes. Steve’s taken classes with him before. He and Loki haven’t ever really had a real conversation, but Steve knows he’s devoted to his art and apparently he’s good enough to be picked for Erskine’s advanced painting class.

Steve puts his stuff in the corner and grabs his easel. He sets it up a little bit off from Loki. The other boy is staring blankly, almost dreamily at his blank canvas. Steve knows that look. It’s not vacancy, it’s visionary. It’s feeling and creating.

“Hey,” Steve says as he sets up next to Loki.

Loki tilts his head in answer and goes back to dreaming.

“Welcome, welcome!” Professor Erskine comes in through the door. He’s already wearing a paint-splattered smock and a good-natured smile. “I apologize for being tardy. Give a freshman a paintbrush and see what happens.”

Steve and the Latina girl laugh. The leather jacket girl rolls her eyes. Loki reaches forward onto his canvas and begins sketching something.

“Yes, please do as Mr. Laufeyson and begin,” Professor Erskine says. “Show me what you are feeling today and we will go from there.”

Steve takes a shaky breath and turns back to his canvas.

Hand shaking a bit—from coffee, from nerves, from exhaustion—he draws a charcoal line across the creamy, blank white canvas.

  
* * * *

Bucky takes his water bottle, chugs half of it and pours the rest over his head. His calves are burning in the way he likes best, his heart pounding, his body worn from miles of running and a rather aggressive 5-a-side match. His mind feels clear for the first time all week.

He watches T’Challa take to the field, Coach Fury changing out most of the players who had played the last 30 minutes.

“Hey Cap,” someone says to the right of him. It brings Bucky out of his reverie.

“Wilson,” Bucky nods at the new kid while he collapses onto the bench next to Bucky and chugs down his own water. “That was some ballsy defending. You know you’re not a striker, right?”

Sam, who had made some crucial blocks, but also randomly scored two goals, grins.

“I’m a good multitasker,” he says. He nods at the field. “Think we’re ready for tomorrow?”

“You keep shutting down forwards like you did Rumlow and we get Clint one of those disgusting unicorn drinks he likes before the game?” Bucky grins a little. “They don’t stand a chance.”

“I don’t know how he drinks that stuff,” Sam says.

“Better not to ask how Clint Barton does anything,” Bucky says sagely, from experience. Once he had made the mistake of asking how Clint manages to survive off of approximately 180 minutes of sleep each night and an hour of Clint’s rambling later, Bucky had been forced to reconsider every one of his life choices.

“I tried it once,” Sam says. “My best friend worked at Starbucks this summer and I went to visit him and I think he might have been trying to poison me.”

“Some best friend,” Bucky laughs.

Sam watches the team on the field, an amused look on his face.

“Yeah, he’s okay,” he says. “When he’s not trying to actively kill me. Or himself.”

“Does he go here?” Bucky asks.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “We’re roommates. He’s all art shit, but sometimes he pretends he gives a shit about sports, mostly for my sake.”

Bucky is uneasily reminded of the smell of watercolors and smooth black hair. He hasn’t thought about Loki since his terrible, no good, very bad hangover, mostly because he’s been actively trying to avoid thinking about him.

“Sounds like a good friend,” Bucky says with a smile and a clap on Sam’s shoulder. “You should invite him to the game.”

“Yeah, I might,” Sam muses aloud and finishes his water. “He owes me for keeping his tiny ass alive.”

“Ass? Did I hear something about a tiny ass?” out of nowhere, the abrasive and, frankly, overwhelmingly annoying voice of Tony Stark comes up behind them.

“What the--” Sam starts and Tony waves at him, as though Sam isn’t three feet away.

“This is a closed practice, Tony,” Bucky says.

“First of all, you’re on the school field, there’s nothing closed or private about this,” Tony says. “Second, is it because of the tiny asses? Is that why it’s closed?”  
  
“Excuse my friend,” Bucky drawls at Sam. “He was dropped on his head as a freshman and he’s never recovered since."

“That’s not funny,” Tony says immediately. “Since I _did_ fall off a roof and land on my head.”

“You landed on an inflatable pizza the size of a small car,” Bucky rolls his eyes. “That you bought. In order to throw yourself off from the roof onto an inflatable pizza the size of a small car.”

“It was a science experiment,” Tony says, waving a hand. “It doesn’t count if it’s for science, everyone knows that.”  
  
“No one knows that, nerd,” Bucky says with a smirk and Tony places a hand on his shoulder.

“Excuse me--” Tony raises his eyebrow at Sam.

“Sam,” Sam raises an eyebrow back.

“Samwise,” Tony says.

“That’s not my--”

“Excuse me, Samwise, I have to steal your captain for a few minutes,” Tony says. “It’s very important. Top secret. Confidential. If you tell anyone I gotta kill you sorta thing.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, scratching his nose. “I gotta tell you, I really don’t care.”

Bucky snickers at that and Tony stares at Sam.

“Interesting, interesting,” he says. He points at Sam. “You and me, Wilson.”

“What?” Sam blinks, confused.

“You and me. Don’t play coy. It’s for the science,” Tony says and slowly starts tugging Bucky back with him.

“What the--hey, how’d you know my name?”

“Byeeeeeeeeeee,” Tony says and Bucky has no choice but to be pulled along until they’re halfway down the field from Sam and anyone else.

  
“Stop stalking my players, Stark,” Bucky grumbles as he takes his arm back from Tony.

“Stop putting your private team information up on an easily hackable device,” Tony says immediately. “ShieldSoccer2018 is the worst password I’ve ever seen, you might as well have made it abc123.”

“What the hell, are you working for the enemy?” Bucky squints at him.

“In a sense, yes,” Tony says. “But let’s not get philosophical. How’s our little wager coming?”

Bucky frowns, tugs his bright orange jersey from his sweaty chest and lets it go. The material immediately goes back to clinging to his torso. Briefly, he wonders if he should just go shirtless, but if Fury puts him back out there, he’ll still be on shirts, not skins, and putting it back on seems more disgusting than just stewing in his own stink.

Anyway, Bucky tries to remember the last time he ran into Steve. He had slipped into the seat next to him in class and, honestly, Steve had seemed so frazzled that Bucky had almost given up immediately. His hair had been in disarray, his shirt tag sticking up out of his shirt, his shirt splattered at random places with the tell-tale paint speckles, dark circles under his eyes. It was impossible, Bucky had thought briefly, to turn this mess into something...other people could relate to. Or want to vote for.

But then Steve had looked at him so comically confused and grumpy and horrified that it had actually softened Bucky’s feelings toward him a little. Yeah, this was for a bet and he was a social disaster, but Steve Rogers was kind of unexpectedly funny.

He had spent the entire class doodling, which would have normally annoyed Bucky, since he hates distractions in class, but every time he chanced a glance over, Steve’s sketches would become more and more ornate, detailed little scenes and figures that came to his head. He had been so lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t noticed Bucky all but staring at him. Bucky had managed to tear his eyes away eventually, but not before he had studied the doodles. They were all dreamy, delicate. Even at the margins, they moved, like a memory startled to be caught on page. They made him feel like there could be more to--this. To something.

What would it be like to create something with his own hands? To have a dream or a thought or a feeling come to him and to transform that to something worth looking at, or reading, or watching. Bucky remembers avidly writing short stories when he was younger, tiny tales of adventures, of space ships and aliens, of dinosaurs on Saturn and time machines that helped small boys travel galaxies and universes. He can’t remember the last time he wrote, but he wonders if it could come to him as effortlessly as Steve drawing the same pair of women’s eyes over and over again.

“Helloooo,” Tony snaps his fingers annoyingly in front of Bucky’s face. “Earth to Barnes. What planet are you on?”

“Leave me alone, Tony,” Bucky snaps at him, shoving his hand away. He sighs. “I’m doing fine. I have it under control.”

“If you want to back out now, no one will blame you,” Tony says. He sticks his hands in his pockets and does that annoying thing on his legs, where he’s swinging his torso back and forth like a pendulum. “You just got dumped. You had a...mental disengagement. You can’t turn Rogers into class president. You’ve seen him. Come on.”

“Sounds to me like you’re scared you might lose,” Bucky says, crossing his arms across his gross, sticky chest. “Tony Stark, beat by an art nerd. Ouch.”  
  
Tony nearly bristles at that, which is the point. God, he’s almost too easy.

“I resent that!” Tony says.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “That’s the point, dude.”

“All right, Barnes,” Tony says. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Don’t say that I, Tony Stark, did not give you a chance to save face. To still be seen on this campus with your head held high. To be a god among men. No, you have chosen the path of a mere mortal.”

Bucky rolls his eyes at that.

“Okay, Rumlow,” he says. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Rumlow!” Tony splutters, turning red. “I resent that!”

In the distance, one of the 5-a-side teams scores and someone cheers.

“I know, Tony,” Bucky sighs. “That’s the point, dude.”

  
Tony’s annoying but it’s a good enough reminder about what’s at stake here. Bucky focuses on running plays and working coherence into the team for the rest of the evening. By the time they dismiss, it’s dinner and Bucky’s dripping in sweat. His limbs are exhausted, but not so tired they’ll move like lead tomorrow. They feel good. He feels good. He’s wired, ready for competition.

The bet slips from his mind until after he showers and collapses into his bed. He texts briefly with Nat and has a ten minute FaceTime session with Becca, who complains to him the entire time about their parents, as though Bucky doesn’t know how insufferable they can be. She only hangs up when Bucky’s eyes start closing on her, for the third or fourth time.

“Go to sleep, loser,” Becca laughs. “And good luck tomorrow!”

Bucky mumbles something incoherent and presses end call. The phone clatters onto his side table and he pulls his covers over his head, becomes a human cocoon, which is his preferred state of being.

It’s as he’s falling asleep that he thinks of it--the problem is that Steve doesn’t know him. Usually one charming smile is enough to disarm someone, but Steve’s too weird for that. He probably wants to know his friends, be given a reason to trust them. If Bucky wants Steve to trust him, he has to get him to spend time with him. And if he wants Steve to be noticed on campus, Steve has to be seen with him. 

There’s a way to do this, Bucky thinks sleepily. Kill two birds with one pumpkin patch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Usually college juniors aren't 21 yet, but in this universe they are because I don't feel like dealing with U.S. drinking laws!  
> ** I'm pretty sure frat/sorority houses are also supposed to be dry, especially since there are under-aged members, but like, what can you do?  
> *** The U.S. NCAA soccer season definitely only runs during the fall semester, but for the purposes of pure college rom com drama, it's going to run all year in this universe! My apologies to any diehard NCAA soccer fans...  
> **** Any inconsistencies or artistic liberties I take in bending real world logistics to my whim I do so in the name of rom com. My apologies in advance, but also you're welcome.


	3. fall semester. (october-december)

**fall semester (october-december).**

  
It’s Saturday at 4 pm when someone starts pounding on his door. Steve, who has been at his art desk all day, looks up from his canvas hazily, the noise startling him to attention.

He answers the door, blinking into the hallway as though it’s bathed in sunlight, which it isn’t.

“Remind me the purpose of a phone,” Peggy says over a perfectly deadly eyebrow.

“Did we have a date?” Steve continues blinking, his art-slogged mind slowly catching up to his current reality. He’s so out of it he doesn’t even catch the implications of his words.

“No, Steve,” Peggy says. Then, a bit impatiently— “May I come in?”

“Yeah!” Steve jumps to attention, embarrassed. He holds the door open and she steps through. “Yeah, sorry, I was working.”

“It doesn’t smell like paint,” Peggy smiles, looking around.

“Haven’t gotten around to mixing them yet,” Steve says. He runs a hand through his hair and a not insignificant amount of blond hair flops into his face. Well, it’s supposed to be blond. It’s somehow green instead. Whoops.

“Sketching?” Peggy asks. She moves toward the art desk with interest. Steve has an easel set up with a blank canvas and a large block of butcher paper that he’s been working to fill. He’s going to transfer the idea onto the canvas when he feels ready.

“We’re still strictly in the ideas phase of this project,” Steve says. He realizes he hasn’t had anything to eat or drink since breakfast, which was fine until the moment he thought about it. He pours himself a glass of water to fulfill half of his basic needs.

“Uh, so Pegs,” Steve says over his glass.

“Yes?” Peggy looks up from where she’s looking at the sketch.

“Are you joining a softball league, by any chance?”

Steve stares at her pointedly and Peggy laughs in delight. A departure from her usual smart blouses and skirts, she’s in shorts, sneakers, some kind of game t-shirt jersey that says AGENT CARTER 02 on the back, and a red baseball cap with her hair in a ponytail out the back.

She looks great, don’t get Steve wrong. But she looks like she woke up from someone’s sports fever dream.

“You don’t know the first thing about sports, do you, Steve?” she asks.

“Athletes run a lot and people like watching them do it from the comforts of their own chair,” Steve offers.

“Quite so,” Peggy agrees. “But I’m referring to specifics. This is not a softball jersey. It is a soccer one.”

Steve frowns.

“You play soccer?”

“No, Steve,” Peggy says patiently. “But we know someone who does.”

It takes Steve a second.

“Oh,” he says. And then he realizes why Peggy’s here. “ _Oh._ Ugh.”

Peggy grins like a cat.

She gives Steve approximately ten minutes to clean up and make himself a sandwich. Then she loops her arm through his and drags him out the door.

  
Soccer is…hot, Steve thinks. Not like, attraction-hot, but it is 90 goddamn degrees outside at 6 pm, why is he sitting here sweating on uncomfortable benches and watching a team of 11 stupid college boys sweat on the field.

Peggy, next to him, doesn’t seem to notice or mind. As the two teams are introduced and march onto the field, she gets up, cups her hands around her mouth and yells. Her ponytail bounces behind her and Steve watches it, mesmerized.

Steve, not close to an asthma attack but close to the idea of an asthma attack, breathes in the stifling, thick air and untwists the cap on his water bottle. He swallows down a third of it in a single gulp and puts the cool plastic to his forehead. His cheeks are already pink. This is torture. Sports are dumb.

They’re close enough to the field that Steve can not only make out which one Sam is, but he can see him scratching the back of his neck as he waits for the play to begin.

Half-inspired by Peggy and half-heat exhausted, Steve stands up and cups his mouth too.

“Sam!” both of them shout.

“Go SHIELD!” Peggy yells.

“Yeah!” Steve laughs and shouts too. “Kick the….ball!”

Sam finally looks over from the field and squints.

Grinning broadly, goofily even, Steve waves at him, arms high and flailing above his head. Next to him, Peggy laughs and joins him.

Sam rolls his eyes, but looks happy about it. Somewhere in front of him, someone with swooped brown hair and a bright green armband over his black jersey looks over his shoulder toward the commotion.

It only takes Steve a few seconds to watch Bucky’s face go from confusion to surprise. He looks from Steve back to Sam, as though he’s both confused and putting something together in the same thought.

All around Steve and Peggy, the crowd cheers at his look.

“Call me crazy,” Peggy says next to Steve. “But is Bucky Barnes looking at you?

Steve flushes, but he’s already so pink from the heat that it’s indistinguishable from his normal coloring, luckily.

“No,” he says. “I don’t know him.”

Which is true, of course. Just because the captain of the soccer team, future fraternity president, and most popular guy on campus is suddenly intent on stalking him doesn’t mean Steve knows the guy. He just knows what pizza he likes, that he reads science fiction, and that he’s a lowkey nerd.

Which isn’t that much about a person, when it comes to it.

But still. Steve can’t help but watch him weave through the field and wonder.

  
20 minutes into the _first_ half— _“Games are how long?_ ” Steve had exclaimed in horror to Peggy—when someone shoved through the crowd in their row.

“Is this seat taken?” a slightly hoarse voice asks.

Steve looks over and sees a small, familiar redhead. She’s the same one who had stared at him at the library the other morning so intently he had nearly had a crisis of conscience. She’s actually taller than Steve, which is an insult to his person, but still compact, although certainly not diminutive. There’s something about her that exudes cool confidence and calm power. She watches Steve with expressionless eyes and he’s slightly terrified of saying anything.

“No,” he finally manages. “Go for it.”

Unnerved, he turns away from her and watches the game again. Steve doesn’t understand all of the technical rules, but soccer is easy enough to follow. The red team runs toward the goal, where a big black boy is standing with bright orange gloves. Every time they manage to get through SHIELD’s team and shoot at the goal, he stops the ball. It almost seems like he barely has to move, like he’s indestructible.

“M’Baku,” Peggy says breathlessly when she leans over to shout in Steve’s ear. “He is the top keeper in the country. He’s almost certainly going to join the Men’s team at the next summer olympics!”

This is a lot of information that Steve only half follows.

“He’s hot, isn’t he?” the redhead says suddenly.

“What?” Steve blinks at her.

“Quite!” Peggy laughs and leans over conspiratorially. Steve leans back so they can talk to each other. The redhead watches him like a shark. He tries to keep the frown off his face. “Although I am partial to T’Challa myself.”

“He looks like a king,” the redhead agrees. She swivels her green eyes on Steve. “What about you?”

“What?” Steve kind of gapes at her like a fish out of water.

“Who do you think is hot?”

Steve tries not to choke on the humid air.

“I—it’s just, my friend. I’m here for my friend.”

“Which one is he?” she asks, tilting her head. How does one move scare Steve even more? Is she going to kill him? Has he accidentally met a demon?

“Wilson,” Peggy, luckily, bless her beautiful, British soul, rescues him. “One of the centerbacks. What about you?”

“Mm,” the redhead says and turns back to the game. She says nothing else and Steve turns back to Peggy, mystified. Peggy shrugs and then suddenly screams.

“Penalty, you absolute moron! That was clear as day!”

Apparently it _was_ clear as day because the referee awards SHIELD a penalty which Steve definitely understands because he definitely knows how sport works.

A slightly stocky blond boy steps up to the painted white box and—Steve squints.

“Is that _Clint?_ ” he says aloud.

“Ha,” the redhead lets out a little laugh. “Yes.”

Steve has genuinely, honestly never once seen Clint Barton perform anything with even a modicum of confidence. He trips with pizza boxes at least once a week. And yet the Clint Barton who steps up to the box is nothing like that. He’s all quiet, lazy confidence.

He takes a breath. Steve almost swears he smiles.

Then he shoots.

  
By halftime, SHIELD is up 2-0, with one penalty taken by Clint and a really nice goal from outside of the box taken by T’Challa. The crowd is shouting, full of good spirits and energy.

Even Steve is smiling, laughing at something the redhead—Natasha, she finally introduced herself, she wasn’t a serial killer, just very, very Russian—was confidentially telling him and Peggy.

“Hey,” Natasha says suddenly and nudges Steve’s shoulder.

“What—?” he starts to ask just before the crowd around him starts shouting again. There’s a particularly vociferous cluster of girls two rows in front of them who are nearly swooning.

Near the edge of the field, just as the team is going back to the locker rooms, Bucky Barnes stands, hand running through his sweaty hair, looking up at the audience, straight at—

Steve flushes.

Peggy raises an eyebrow.

“Interesting,” she says.

Bucky smiles widely and waves at him. Then he winks, exaggeratedly, like the dramatic, obnoxious ass he is, and disappears into the locker room behind his teammates.

“ _Interesting_ ,” Peggy says again.

Steve scowls, half-annoyed and half-flustered. It’s a feeling he’s becoming too, concerningly, used to.

He crosses his arms at his chest.

“Sports are stupid,” he grumbles.

Next to him, Peggy laughs and Natasha, for some reason, smirks.

  
SHIELD ends up playing a mediocre second half. The other team scores one and almost ties, but Sam delivers some great last minute blocks and Bucky starts some ridiculously complicated play that begins with him in the midfield and ends with T’Challa taking a corner. Rumlow is the one to score it, which makes Steve roll his eyes a little—even he knows Brock Rumlow’s asshole reputation.

But SHIELD wins 3-1, which Peggy tells him is a great score.

“Come on,” she says after the crowd starts filing out. “Introduce me to your new _friend._ ”

“We’re not friends!” Steve protests, not that Peggy listens.

“He’ll be disappointed to hear that,” Natasha says mysteriously. She follows them down, looking as pleased as though she had personally won the game herself.

They get as far as the railing at the front row when Sam spots them. He jogs over, grinning.

“Oh, you were brilliant, Sam!” Peggy says and leans forward to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks, Peggy,” he says, pleased as a peach.

“Yeah, good job on the uh, soccer,” Steve says. “I really like how good you um, kicked the ball.”

Sam laughs, but reaches up and claps a hand on Steve’s back.

“You ass,” he says. “But thanks for sacrificing and coming out. We weren’t bad, huh?”

“You were all right,” Natasha says drily.

“Why, hello,” Sam eyes her with interest.

“Hey there, handsome,” Natasha bats her eyelashes just so and Steve is positive she’s eaten boys alive for much less.

“You watch the game?” Sam asks and runs a hand over his head as though he has any hair to speak of. Steve isn’t a cartoon character, but if he was he would absolutely be saying _good grief._

“No,” Natasha says. “I just come here for the cute boys.”

“Cute boys?” a sudden voice appears just behind Sam. Out of thin air, or maybe magic, Bucky Barnes appears. “Where? Can I get one too?”

“They’re all on your team,” Natasha says. “You pick first, then I’ll go.”

“These jerks?” Bucky asks, wrinkling his nose and looking around the field. “This is the best the student body has to offer?”

“Hey, man!” Sam protests next to Bucky and Bucky laughs. Then, as though he can’t help it, he turns his infuriating, spotlight eyes on Steve.

“Stevie,” he says happily. “Are you stalking me?”

Steve nearly bristles, but he doesn’t have a chance to make a sour comment before his friends process what Bucky’s said.

“ _Stevie_?” Sam and Peggy say at once.

“Do you two know each other?” Steve stares at Bucky and Natasha.

“How do you know Steve?” Sam asks, turning to Bucky.

“How do you know Steve?” Bucky asks, turning to Sam.

“Natasha, do you know everyone?” Steve asks, squinting and suddenly suspicious.

“Господи, какие дураки эти смертные,” Natasha replies, crossing her arms at her chest, barely batting an eyelash. She’s so unruffled that the rest of them stop bickering long enough to ogle at her.

“She’s Russian,” Bucky says with a shrug, as though that explains anything. Well, Steve supposes it explains the Russian.

“No shit,” he says, unable to stop himself. “I just thought she was a cyborg.”

“I am,” Natasha says, just as Bucky says, “She is.”

Bucky smiles again, that bright, happy, blinding one that Steve wants absolutely and resolutely to ignore for the rest of his life.

And then Sam, who has look highly skeptical and confused and just a little like he’s given up all hopes of understanding what’s going on, nods his head.

“Yeah,” he says. “Now that? That makes sense.”

  
Sam and Bucky have to follow the team back in soon for the post-game debrief and so that they stop smelling like an armpit. Sam is distracted by Natasha and Peggy leans in to the conversation to ask about formations. Steve is lost enough that he pulls out his phone to check his messages, as though anyone other than Sam and Peggy text him anyway.

Bucky, who was talking to someone else in the crowd, unscrews a bottle of water and looks at Steve.

“Hey,” he says and it’s a bit more normal, not as obviously cheesy or showboaty as when the others were paying attention. “Did you enjoy the game?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. He pulls at his t-shirt, which is clinging to him with sweat. “Next time try to play somewhere other than the pit of hell.”

Bucky laughs at that.

“Which level do you prefer? Fourth? Fifth?”

“Oh, great,” Steve rolls his eyes. “90 minutes of voluntary torture and he’s still making Dante jokes.”

“Would you say I made an _infernal_ joke?” Bucky immediately snickers.

“Oh my GOD,” Steve says loudly and Bucky bursts into laughter. “I can’t _stand_ you.”

Instead of looking put out, Bucky somehow looks genuinely pleased, mouth soft at the corners, the wrinkle between his brows smoothing out. It’s a good look on him, as loathe as Steve is to admit it.

“Think I’ll see you at another one of these?” he asks with a smile.  

“Depends on how many puns I have to suffer through,” Steve squints at him.

“None, if that’s your goal,” Bucky says innocently.

“Holy shit.”

“I’ll try to kick the habit.”

“Stop!”

Bucky opens his mouth to reply and Steve doesn’t think, he’s suffered so much, he leans forward and covers Bucky’s mouth with his hand.

“No,” he says. “No more. Never again.”

Bucky looks up at him and Steve can feel the curve of his smile against his palm. He has long eyelashes, Steve realizes. The breeze ruffles his hair, sweaty strands landing, somehow, perfectly across the top of his forehead.

“If I let you go and I hear a single pun out of your mouth, I’m going to kick a ball at your head,” Steve says. “Understand?”

Bucky nods.

Dubiously, Steve lets him go and leans back away.

“You drive a hard bargain, Rogers,” Bucky says. “Or should I say—”

“No!” Steve shouts, panicked.

“—a ballgain.”

Steve groans in pain and Bucky laughs so hard, it’s Sam who has to drag him away for his own good.

  
“I’m never coming to one of these things again,” Steve grumbles as he and Peggy start the walk back to their dorms. Natasha has since disappeared, although Steve is certain he’ll see her again when she wants him to.

Peggy loops her arm through Steve’s again and leans in close so she can whisper into his ear conspiratorially.

“So, Bucky Barnes. He’s cute, Steve,” she says. “You should--”

“No,” Steve says. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh come on,” Peggy chides him. “He’s sweet and funny and captain of the soccer team. What could you possibly be waiting for?  
  
And there it is again, that strange sensation that maybe Peggy doesn’t remember. That maybe that night, between the two of them, had been nothing more than a passing, drunken college moment to her, a moment she will look back on fondly, years down the road, but never really remember with any sort of clarity. _I got drunk one night and made out with someone_ , she’ll say. _He was sweet, I think. Who was he? Oh, I can’t remember at all_.

So while Steve could say something like _you_ , he’s not that desperate and he’s certainly not that stupid.

“I don’t date outside my kind,” Steve says with a sigh instead.

By which he could mean any number of things--a frat bro, a jock, a rich kid. Someone who looks like he’s had every good thing in life handed to him. Steve--well, he doesn’t know how to relate to that. He doesn’t know how to be that easy.

“Oh, Steven,” Peggy says with a sigh.

She doesn’t say anything else and that’s almost worse.

  
* * * *

Bucky’s not surprised to find Natasha waiting for him outside the frat house. If anything, he’s surprised that she’s not inside his room, taking up room on his bed and eating her way through his snacks.

Instead, she’s standing against the big tree on the frown lawn, one arm folded across her chest, the other holding her phone at viewing distance.

“You hungry?” Bucky asks, nodding to her.

“Starving,” Natasha says and puts her phone away. “If you’re paying.”

Bucky snorts.

“How do you feel about a cafeteria dinner?” he asks and she makes a derisive sound.

“What good is hooking up with the son of a politician if I still have to eat iceberg lettuce?”

She follows him in through the front door. They’re supposed to shout GIRL IN THE HOUSE or something cheesy like that when they bring someone back to the frat house, but who’s going to yell at Natasha Romanoff for following her own rules? Anyway, the chance that any of the guys will even notice is slim to none. Nat moves like a ghost.

“That was one time,” Bucky says and leads them up the stairs to his room. “And I bought you dinner after.”

“It was Chipotle.”

“They use romaine,” Bucky gives her the most annoying grin he can imagine.

Natasha snorts and shoulders past him to throw herself on his bed, as though she’s had a long and trying day of sport watching.

“Let me just rest a minute,” Bucky says and nudges her side with his knee. She sighs and rolls over. “I’m starving.”

“I thought you athlete types carbo-loaded before big games,” she says from somewhere near his thigh.

“You’re literally a ballerina,” Bucky says. He spreads his arms behind his head and presses against the headboard. “And you _burn_ all those carbs running for 90 minutes.”

“Uh huh,” Natasha says.

She leaves the conversation at that and soon Bucky’s eyes are tugging shut, his muscles exhausted and relaxed, his mind drifting away.

“There’s potential,” Natasha tells him, just as he’s about to start snoring.

“What?” 

“Rogers,” Natasha says. She turns over onto her stomach and he sees her green eyes peering up at him. She’s a cloud of red curls and a thoughtful, unreadable expression.

“What about him?” Bucky asks sleepily.

“He has potential,” Natasha says. “You both do.”

Bucky’s not entirely sure what that means, but his stomach gurgles, so he answers by sitting up and petting his stomach.

“Food,” he declares.

Natasha sighs.

“You’re a child,” she says. “You both are.”

“A child who’s going to buy you sushi,” Bucky says. “Don’t sass me.”

Natasha considers this.

“Two rolls and I stop commenting about how pathetic you are,” she says. “Add in salmon sashimi and I won’t bring up your love life. And I want edamame. Just for dealing with you.”

“Deal,” Bucky says.

  
Bucky spends the next day catching up on his readings. He has 30 pages to read for his modern international political theory class, a short reaction paper to write for his Russian literature class, and a worksheet of logical inconsistencies for his philosophy class. The only thing he looks forward to is the assignment from Professor Danvers, which is to brainstorm all the ways in which he can approach answering his paper topic.

It takes him all day, including two cups of coffee, three sandwiches, a bag of hot Cheetos, and two breaks to play FIFA against Clint, but by the time it’s evening he’s finally ready to brainstorm.

He sits in his chair, laptop open in front of him, the cursor blinking in his blank Word document.

He gives the paper a title, puts his name on it. Then he turns on music—whatever Natasha left last on his Spotify account—and bops along to some KPop song while drumming his fingers on his desk.

He’s mid-thought about the intricacies of KPop when his phone dings with an email. Bucky scrolls over to it and sees it’s from GEORGE BARNES, SENATOR.

Rolling his eyes, Bucky opens it.

> _James,_
> 
> _Your mother and I hope you are settling in properly at school. Rebecca sent us a video of your soccer game—we are proud and sorry to have missed it._
> 
> _I have sent the clip, along with your resume, along to my friend at Georgetown Law. He was extremely impressed by your credentials, experience, and soccer skills._
> 
> _I am sending you a calendar invitation to meet with him, along with a digital itinerary and your Amtrak ticket to Washington D.C. in two week’s time._
> 
> _Best wishes,_
> 
> _Your Father_

Bucky doesn’t get three sentences in before the color drains from his face. He starts hearing that noise in his ears, that tinny sound that makes him think he’s seeing double vision.

He can see it, acutely, the way he can see it every time his father opens his mouth—the LSAT books, the admissions letter, three more years of school, a lifetime sitting at a desk reading over contracts and preparing motions until one day he wakes up and finds that his eyes have atrophied in his head out of boredom and he’s been dead in his office for 200 years.

It’s someone else’s future, not his. But it’s his too.

Suddenly, he can’t stand it. He can’t stand any of it—the laptop, his desk, his unfinished assignment. His phone buzzes and his father’s face appears and he can’t stand that either. His breath comes up short. He has to get out of here.

He grabs his keys, leaves his phone, and walks out of the frat house.

  
Bucky doesn’t chart a path, doesn’t really stop to see where he’s going. All he knows is that he needs to keep moving, he needs to be in motion. The moment he stops, it’ll all come crashing down over him.

He ends up at the track and field enclosure, high beams lighting a field of red track, white circles painted on the ground. There's a high fence around the perimeter, but the door is open, so Bucky slips in.

Sometimes, when his brain gets like this, overwhelmed by school or his social obligations or his parents, his feet bring him here, to this well-lit field, deserted except for the occasional insomniac at midnight. It’s not that late yet, so there are a few people out, running laps or just walking the track. They leave Bucky alone and he walks the track too, hands in his pockets, looking up at the clear night sky.

It’s not bad, is the thing. At the core of it, if he takes a step back from his desires and his regrets, he knows that law is a perfectly decent field. It involves a lot of research and a lot of writing and he’s always been very good at both. He loves his political science classes. He thinks the Supreme Court is interesting. Once, he went with his father to a political fundraiser dinner and met Justice Roberts, who was kind of a dick, but interesting enough to talk to.

Bucky would be fine in the legal field. He would even be good at it.

But it’s not what he wants. And maybe he sounds like a spoiled brat, but he doesn’t know how to say no to it, not without disappointing his father.

He turns the bend of the track when he sees a head of blond hair laying on the ground, off toward the center, arms sprawled like a starfish.

“Steve?” Bucky asks out loud into the quiet night air. When Steve doesn’t move, Bucky gets worried. He steps off the path toward him and then squats by his shoulder, touches it. “Hey, are you okay?”

Startled, Steve’s eyes bolt open.

“Shit!” he exclaims and jolts up and it’s only then that Bucky notices he’s wearing headphones. Steve takes one of the buds out his ear and blinks rapidly. “Bucky?”

“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky laughs a little. “I thought something had happened. What are you doing down here?”

“You scared me,” Steve wheezes a little. Bucky looks alarmed, but Steve shakes his head with a little laugh of his own. “It’s okay. It’ll calm down. What are you doing here?”

“Walking,” Bucky says. “Why are you...laying on the ground?”

“Oh,” Steve says, nodding as though this is a normal occurrence that he gets questioned about with some frequency. “There’s usually not many people here at night. I like how quiet it is.”

Bucky can understand that. That’s why he comes here, after all.

“Do you mind if I join you?” he asks. “Or I can leave you alone.”

Steve hesitates for a second, but then nods.

Bucky smiles and sits down next to him, a foot of ground between them.

“You do this often?” he asks, keeping his voice quiet to preserve the stillness around them. “Lay on the ground and play dead?”

“Yeah,” Steve quirks a smile. “It was the second trick I learned after fetch.”

Despite himself, that makes Bucky grin.

“You always have an answer for everything huh?” he says.

That makes Steve sigh a little, his shoulders droop enough that it’s only then that they both notice they had been hunched close to his ears.

“Yeah,” he says. “Character flaw.” 

“One man’s character flaw is another man’s personality trait,” Bucky says. He stretches his legs out in front of him, props himself up on his palms behind him.

“Pretty sure a personality trait can also be a character flaw, but I appreciate the sentiment,” Steve says with a half-smile. “I like to come out here at night and watch the stars. It’s cliché, I know. I usually tell people I’m an artist and they don’t ask follow up questions.”

Loki tried that with Bucky a few times. Every time Bucky would ask follow up questions, he would snap at him. In retrospect, maybe their relationship had always been less than ideal.

“Is there a follow up question I should be asking?” Bucky asks. “Like, why you watch the stars?”

That makes Steve smile.

“You’re not all brawn, huh, Barnes?”

“Don’t tell the rest of the frat,” Bucky jokes and is pleased when Steve laughs at that. Bucky’s only been trying to get to know Steve for a little while now, but already he knows how rarely Steve laughs. He doesn’t offer up much of himself other than a snarky and grumpy exterior.

“I like that we get their light millions of years after they’ve died,” Steve says. “It’s morbid, but poetic. It makes me feel...small, I guess. Insignificant. And sometimes that’s what I need, when I’m too in my own head and nothing feels right.”

“Your art?” Bucky guesses.

“My art,” Steve says. He raises one shoulder in shrug. “And other things. When you realize you’re so small that you live millions of years after starlight, I don’t know. It puts everything into perspective. Nothing feels as heavy as it does otherwise.”

Bucky closes his eyes briefly and tries to think of it that way.

He thinks about all of the things weighing on him--his father, law school, his break up, trying to take over the fraternity after Thor, his grades, being co-captain of the soccer team, the anxiety he’s struggled with since he was a child--and then he thinks about how every point in the sky is a message from a million years ago. One day, in hundreds of years, he’ll be a message from the past too. All of these things that have made it difficult for him to breathe--they won’t matter at all anymore. If they ever did in the first place.

Bucky takes in a breath and lets it out. Then he opens his eyes.

Steve is watching him carefully, his legs out in front of him, his hands behind him too. He has one earbud in and one hanging over his chest, the soft sound of instrumental music coming through the earbud.

“You’re right,” Bucky says quietly, warmly. “It does help.”

“What about you?” Steve asks then.

Bucky looks up at the sky, at dead stars and live planets.

“I’m gonna sound like a brat,” he says.

“Oh, I already assumed you were one,” Steve says with a small grin.

Bucky snorts at that and draws his knees up to his chest.

“I don’t always want the things that are set for me,” Bucky says. “I know that’s...the definition of privilege. I’m not stupid. But having someone say you have to do this, or this is what your future is--sometimes I need a break.”

“A chance to be someone else?” Steve asks.

“A chance to be no one,” Bucky says.

Steve seems to think about that for a moment.

“You make it sound bad, being who you are,” he says. “But you’re rich and popular and seem smart. You have the entire campus eating out of the palm of your hand. You’re politically well-connected. You could probably have any opportunity in the world.”

“I know that,” Bucky says and that heavy feeling grows heavier. “But.”

“But?”

“It doesn’t feel that way,” Bucky says, after a moment. “It feels like everything has been chosen for me and no one’s asking me what _I_ want.”

“Well,” Steve starts and he almost sounds amused. “What _do_ you want?”

Bucky knows he just said it out loud, but hearing the question echoed back to him--well, it startles him. What _does_ he want? If not the law, then what? If he could be anything in the world, if he could do anything in the world, what would it be? What would he do?

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“You’re right,” Steve laughs. “You do sound like a brat.”

Bucky’s offended for just a second, but then he has to chuckle too. He runs a hand through his hair and nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

“You know what I want?” Steve asks.

“What?” Bucky says.

Steve smiles at him and offers the other earbud.

“To finish listening to this playlist.”

Bucky takes it and Steve scoots closer to him. Wordlessly, he lays back down and turns the sound up. Bucky looks at him for a moment and then lowers himself down to the ground.

They don’t say anything else, just listen to Steve’s music in the quiet, silent night air and look up at old starlight together.

  
The next morning, Bucky wakes up in his bed and he feels better. He doesn’t have any answers and nothing has changed, but he feels lighter anyway. He takes his morning shower, eats his morning cereal, and finishes his reading for his morning political science class. Then, brightly, he visits his favorite morning coffee cart, so by the time he walks into Professor Danvers’ class and sees a familiar head of blond attached to the grumpiest, groggiest face he’s ever seen, he has two large coffees in his hand.

“Anyone sitting here?” he asks again and before Steve can answer, again, he’s taking the seat.

“Why do you pretend I have a choice?” Steve scowls at him.

Grinning, Bucky puts the coffee on his desk.

“What is this? Poison?” Steve looks at the cup and then Bucky suspiciously.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I figured you take your poison black. You seem like you like bitter.”

“Was that a joke?” Steve squints at him. “It’s too early for jokes.”

“I’ve been up for two hours!” Bucky says, brightly.

“Mrgh,” Steve groans, but, Bucky notices, takes a huge sip of the coffee anyway. “I hate morning people.”

“Weird, I thought you just hated people.”

“What did I tell you about jokes?” Steve glares.  
  
“Say them often and loudly and as early in the morning as possible,” Bucky says cheerfully. If expressions could kill, Bucky would have dropped dead at Steve’s. It honestly nearly makes him laugh out loud.

“I think you might have been created to torture me,” Steve says. “Me, specifically.”

“Honestly seems likely,” Bucky says, drinking his own coffee--milk, with two sugars.

Steve sighs and blearily drinks more of his.

“Thanks for the coffee,” he says.

“Thanks for last night,” Bucky says quietly.

Maybe it’s too early in the morning to address something that had seemed so natural and intimate under the cover of night, but Bucky’s never been anything but straightforward and honest.

That actually does make Steve smile, though.

“Do you feel better?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says and surprisingly means it.

“Good,” Steve says. He takes another sip and opens his laptop just as Professor Danvers walks in.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky says quickly before the professor starts talking.

“Hm?” Steve looks over at him.

“Do you like pumpkin patches?”

* * * *

Everyone likes pumpkin patches, is the truth. It’s early October and autumn has come crisply to upstate New York. Steve hasn’t been caught a debilitating cold yet, but, as Sam has told him about a hundred times, don’t invite the devil into your home, or something, so Steve makes sure to dress warmly. He’s in his favorite skinny jeans, his warmest red-and-black plaid flannel shirt, a slouchy cardigan, a blue fall jacket, a yellow scarf that Sam’s grandmother had knit for him the year before, and a black beanie that’s only a little bigger than his head. None of it matches particularly well, but Steve is warm and that’s really all that matters to him.

Honestly, he can’t remember how he got conned into spending a Saturday on a random pumpkin patch on a random farm, but he vaguely recalls being severely sleep deprived one morning in his political science and media class and Bucky Barnes marching in like a fucking Twilight vampire, all grins and sparkling skin, not at all like he’d spent until about 2 am the night before listening to music in the middle of an outdoor track, and he’d come bearing coffee--black, just the way Steve liked it--and Steve had been too taken off guard by the entire enterprise to say anything but yes.

Also, as mentioned, everyone likes pumpkin patches.

  
It’s a group activity, thank god, because if Steve had agreed to go to a pumpkin patch with just Bucky, he thinks he would have just had to fling himself into the closest body of water. Not to be dramatic, but Sam and Peggy have been giving him shit ever since the soccer game and Steve _still_ has feelings for Peggy and he still wants to _kill_ Bucky Barnes most of the time, even though it’s actually been pretty okay sitting next to him in class. Since that day he had asked Steve to the pumpkin patch, he’s come into class every Monday and Wednesday--big smile on his face, floppy hair combed out of his eyes, two huge cups of coffee in his hands--and asked “This seat taken?” even though they both know by now that it’s Bucky’s seat until he decides he’s had enough of whatever social experiment he’s currently conducting by slumming it with Steve.

Wow, his inner monologue is really in full gear today. It must be how the air smells like fall and how Sam and Natasha are already talking and Clint is stomping his booted feet and Peggy is talking to someone named Angie and they’re all waiting for Bucky, and Steve, as much as he hates to admit it, is too.

Bucky finally comes out from his frat house and he has on a denim jacket over an olive sweater and nice jeans and a nice dark green and black argyle scarf. He looks soft and happy and has two cups of coffee in his hands.

“Hey, sorry for making you guys wait!” he says. “Tony caught me on my way to the door and--”

There’s a collective group groan, because everyone knows that no story beginning with “Tony caught me on my way” ends with anything other than “--and so, an hour later, I had to tell him Tony shut the hell up I _have_ to go to class.”

“That for me?” Natasha asks, eyeing the cup enviously.

Ah, Steve thinks, of course.

Then, Bucky smiles broadly.

“Nope!” he says and hands the coffee cup over to Steve.

“Bitter,” he says. "Just like you.  
  
Steve very nearly blushes and studiously ignores Sam and Peggy’s sharp looks, all the while unable to help but feel pleased.

“Thanks,” he says.

“No prob,” Bucky says, as though it didn’t cost him a single thought. “Okay, folks. It’s an hour train ride to the farm. Just enough time to appreciate the foliage outdoors, but not enough time to become melancholy about it.”

“Who’s gonna get melancholy about some leaves?” Sam asks.

“They’re dying, Sam,” Steve says solemnly before Bucky can answer. “They turn their most colorful and their brightest just before they die and I think that’s beautiful.”

Sam looks at him like he’s grown a second head, but Bucky snickers into his coffee cup.

“Yeah, what Lenny Kravitz said,” he says.

“What?” Steve blinks.

“The blanket around your neck,” Bucky says. “Sorry, I meant your scarf.”

“What’s wrong with my scarf!” Steve protests.

“Nothing at all,” Bucky says. “But Lenny Kravitz would like it back.”

“Why do you keep mentioning Lenny Kravitz?” Steve looks at him, puzzled.

Everyone around them snickers and then they’re walking toward the train, everyone talking in their smaller groups, and Bucky and Steve, in the middle, bickering playfully the entire way.

  
Steve’s not entirely certain how the seat configurations come to be, but he ends up taking a window seat and it’s not Peggy or Sam who end up next to him, but Bucky. He doesn’t even ask if the seat is taken this time, just plops himself down in the seat next to Steve and proceeds to crane his body over Steve’s in order to look out the window.

“Hey!” Steve protests and Bucky shoots him an apologetic smile.

“Sorry,” he says. “I love looking out when the train moves. Everything’s still and then it’s not.”

“You wanna trade seats?” Steve asks and Bucky shakes his head.

“Nah, it’s okay,” he says. “The view’s good from here.”

Steve knows Bucky means like, the _actual_ view, but he’s looking at him and it makes him turn a little pink. Choosing to ignore the warmth in his cheeks, he nods at Bucky’s backpack.

“You’re not gonna do homework?” he asks quizzically.

“Oh, no,” Bucky says. “I--okay, don’t laugh.”

Steve’s eyebrows shoot up into his blond hair.

Bucky sighs and unzips his backpack. Inside is a water bottle, an extra pair of socks, and a book.

“When I was a kid, my parents used to take me to work events with them. Banquets and conferences, the kind of things that drive a kid out of his mind with boredom,” Bucky says and takes the book out. He hands it to Steve. “I learned never to go anywhere without a book.”

Steve takes the book from him and turns it over. The cover is worn at edges, the spine cracked from all of the times someone’s opened it and read it. The pages have taken on that sepia color of books that have been loved for years. _The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien_.

“Tolkien?”

“If your next question is going to be do I know Elvish, the answer is,” Bucky says and leans in closer to Steve. Steve doesn’t cringe back, mostly because of how sudden it is. “Yes.”

“You--wait, what?” he says. “You know _Elvish_?”

“If you tell anyone, I’ll deny it,” Bucky says.

“How does no one know you’re a _nerd_?” Steve stares at him, amazed, and Bucky winks at him.

He takes the book back and he’s so careful with it, so reverent, that Steve can see him, all those years when he was younger, sitting in a corner, spending time with hobbits and elves and wizards.

“Have you ever tried yourself?” Steve asks after Bucky puts the book back away. “Writing science fiction or fantasy.”

For some reason, Bucky’s smile, always wide and easy, seems to dim a little.

“I used to,” he says. “When I was younger. I really liked writing short stories.”

“Do you still?” Steve asks, although he thinks he knows the answer from Bucky’s face alone.

“Not so much,” Bucky says. “But hey, it’s okay. I got plenty to read.”

Steve nods at that, although he can’t help but feel like Bucky’s selling himself short, somehow. He doesn’t know the whole story, but he thinks about that time Bucky found him in the field. He had looked a little frazzled, a little lost. Steve hadn’t asked him questions, because it hadn’t looked like he was in the headspace to answer any. Anyway, Steve didn’t know Bucky, not really.

“Well, look,” Steve says and beckons Bucky over.

Bucky takes his cue, leans over Steve’s shoulder and they both look out the window as the train lets out a little hissing sound and gives a smooth start. One second the trees outside are still and the next they’re in motion, the landscape blurring by slowly.

Steve turns his face and Bucky’s is a mere inches from his own. He’s smiling widely.

“I love trains,” Bucky says. “I love going places.”

That reminds Steve of his mother. They hadn’t had much, but what they did have, Sarah Rogers had always saved carefully for. They would take weekend trips together, to small towns up and down New York and Connecticut and New Jersey, because that was what they could afford. Once, she had saved up enough to take him to Washington D.C. and they had spent an entire, magical weekend going to the Smithsonians and visiting the Supreme Court and the White House and eating tacos on benches in the park. Steve had been twelve and he still has pictures from it, pasted into a scrapbook, hidden in a box of other mementos from his old life on the topmost shelf of his closet.

“Do you travel a lot?” Steve asks then.

“Yeah,” Bucky replies. He finally moves away, settling into his own seat. His boots press against the back of the seat in front of him. “Mom and Dad are always planning a vacation, even though they spend most of the time doing work anyway. Last year we went to Italy for two weeks and we didn’t see Dad the entire time. We were sharing a villa.”

Bucky looks amused at that, but it jars something in Steve. It’s not as though he didn’t know Bucky was wealthy--he had never been more aware of something in his life. But in between moments of his flashy life, Steve had caught glimpses of someone else, someone quieter, more earnest. It had made him forget, momentarily, who he was and what he was.

It wasn’t Bucky’s fault he was a wealthy, popular, frat bro, but it did mean that he and Steve had nothing in common. And likely never would.

Steve gives him a fake smile.

“I’m gonna listen to music on the way up. You mind?”

“No,” Bucky says. “I’ll read my book.”

Steve nods and scrolls to one of his autumn coffee shop playlists. He pulls his legs up, puts his earbuds in, and watches the hills of New York trees roll by outside of the train.

  
Steve must doze off, because he feels a tap on his shoulder and he blinks awake.

“Hey, we’re here,” Bucky says softly. “You okay?”

Steve nods, a little groggily.

He tries to remember what he was dreaming about, but he can only remember his mother’s eyes, her sad smile, and something about dying stars.  
  
The pumpkin patch is attached to a small farm that also sells fresh vegetables, homemade pies, and everything apple cider. There are families out on the field, little kids in red wagons picking up small and orange globes alike. The group of them stand in front of the farmhouse, where inside, people are lining up to buy apple cider, apple cider donuts, and caramel-covered apples.

“This is my _jam_ ,” Sam says excitedly, eyeing every apple-themed product.

“I think apple jam is by the apple pies,” Natasha says and Peggy laughs into Angie’s arm.

“What should we do first?” Clint asks, looking around. Clint, who never dresses properly for anything in his life, is wearing shorts and a t-shirt that says SHIELD COLLEGE SOCCER on it.

“I want to go on a hayride,” Natasha says.

“That sounds fun,” Peggy admits.

“That sounds like hell on earth,” Sam says. “I’m gonna go look at that corn maze. Steve, you coming?”

Steve looks at the corn maze dubiously, but he shrugs.

“Yeah, why not?”

“I could go for a corn maze,” Bucky says.

“I bet you could,” Natasha mutters under her breath. Then she turns and hooks a finger under Clint’s t-shirt collar. “Hayride. Come.”

“We’ll see you gentlemen after,” Peggy says, smiling at Steve, Sam, and Bucky. She and Angie join Natasha and Clint in the line for the hayride.

“Is that?” Sam asks, raising his eyebrow.

“Mmhm,” is all Bucky says.

Steve, who has no idea what they’re both talking about, looks between them in confusion.

“What?” he asks dumbly.

“Nothing,” Sam says. “Corn maze. If one of you suckers gets lost, I’m leaving you in there for Freddy to find.”

“I don’t think Freddy’s hiding in corn mazes,” Bucky says as they get in their own line.

“Yeah, that’s just what Freddy Krueger wants you to think,” Sam mutters under his breath. “It’s a part of his master plan.”

“Don’t--” Steve starts to warn, but he’s too late.  
  
“Freddy Krueger has a master plan?” Bucky asks as they get their tickets.

“I wish you hadn’t asked,” Steve sighs. “I really wish you hadn’t asked.”

  
The three of them spend an hour in the maze, going through different turns and dead ends, finding clues in the most roundabout manner possible. First Sam takes the lead and then Bucky takes the lead and then Steve declares both of them useless and puts himself in charge of finding the proper path. Sam spends about ten minutes detailing all of his Freddy Krueger theories, until Steve shoots Bucky a death glare for getting them into this mess, and he swiftly changes the topic to the soccer team. Steve has no interest in that line of conversation, but at least it doesn’t end in a fictional character waiting around every corner ready to kill them.

At some point, Sam declares that there is _absolutely_ a clue down this side path and Steve and Bucky don’t believe him, so he forges ahead, determined to prove his worth.

The two of them trail after him at a leisurely, skeptical pace.

“We’ve done that loop _twice_ ,” Bucky says.

“Yup,” Steve says. He trails a hand over the wheat stalks and corn husks, strung back to create artificial paths for corn maze enthusiasts.

“Someone wrote YOLO on that corn husk in sharpie,” Bucky points out. “We’ve seen it _twice_.”

“Yup,” Steve agrees.

“You’re not gonna tell him, are you?” Bucky observes.

“It’s better for Sam to find these things out for himself,” Steve grins at Bucky.

Bucky chuckles and shakes his head.

They walk in comfortable silence for a while, Sam’s head visible a handful of yards ahead of them.

“Once,” Bucky says, breaking their easy quiet. “I went to one of these with Becca.”

“Becca?”

“Oh, younger sister,” Bucky grins warmly. “I was, I dunno, ten? Eleven? And she was six or seven. Mom and Dad had taken a weekend off and they couldn’t decide if they wanted to do Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons, so Becca and I yelled about pumpkins until they capitulated. We drove up to some farm upstate, kinda like this one. It was bigger, I guess.”

Whenever Bucky talks, it’s so easy to imagine what he’s talking about. He paints pictures with his words, even if he doesn’t know he’s doing it. Steve can see both of them, little snot-nosed, rambunctious Bucky Barnes and his baby sister, who Steve doesn’t know, but assumes looks exactly like him, but smaller.

“Anyway, Becca and I wanted to do everything and the parents, of course, got some call or other. So they let us loose on the farm.” Bucky smiles at that and runs a hand through his hair. A few tufts stick up at the back of his head and Steve almost reaches up to smooth them back down.

“Did you destroy everything?” he asks instead.

“Oh, almost,” Bucky laughs. “We ran through the pumpkin patch, definitely uprooted some vegetables, went on a hayride that Becca promptly _fell off_ , and then squirmed our way into the corn maze.”

“Uh oh,” Steve says.

“Uh oh is right,” Bucky nods in agreement. “We got ridiculously lost. Like, I think we were in there for at least two hours before George and Winifred realized they needed to send in reinforcements.”

“Two hours?” Steve can’t imagine his Ma letting him out of her sight for two hours, especially not when he was a kid and they were out together.

“Yeah,” Bucky shrugs. “By the time they found us, we had scrapes and bruises everywhere, Becca had an entire wheat plant in her hair, and--guess what?”

“What?”

“We were literally around the corner from the entrance,” Bucky says, laughing. “Like, we had just gotten there and stopped and cried for an hour. If we had just turned the corner, we would have gotten out.”

Steve has to smile at that. Again, he can picture it, can picture the entire day and Bucky finally collapsing from exhaustion and refusing to just ask the next person where the exit was.

“You gonna cry if we don’t get out of here?” Steve asks.

“Maybe,” Bucky admits. “I’m a huge crier.”

That surprises Steve, who cries extremely infrequently. He had been sick so often as a kid that he’d learned at a young age that crying does nothing to help, just makes the people around him sad.

“Don’t cry on me,” Steve warns.

“Definitely cry on you,” Bucky says immediately. “Got it. Nice of you to offer, honestly.”

Steve lets out a large, aggrieved sigh, which only makes Bucky Barnes look more delighted.

“Think Sam’s figured out he’s going in an endless loop yet?” Bucky asks after a moment, looking amused at everything.

“Nope,” Steve says.

“Aw, hell no!” Sam’s voice suddenly cries loudly from around the corner. “We been this way _at least_ three times!”

“Yup,” Steve amends his answer.

  
They finally manage to pick up the last clues in the scavenger hunt and find their way out of the corn maze. It’s Bucky, ironically, who figures it out in the end. They had lost their starting map at least half an hour ago and had been wandering, partly instinctively, and partly out of deductive reasoning. It had mostly led them in circles, until Bucky had figured out the color coding system of the ropes along the sides and tracked traffic patterns. That is, he followed colors and found out where people were coming and going from.

“Success!” he cries as they finally emerge into the cool autumn afternoon.

“You really redeemed yourself there, pal,” Steve says with a snort. “No one will ever look at you now and say wow, there’s Bucky Barnes, remember the time a corn maze defeated him when he was ten years old?”

“Honestly, I feel like a new man,” Bucky says, nodding solemnly. “I’m confident now. Colors are brighter. The world is full of hopes and dreams.”

“What are you losers talking about now?” Sam asks, walking up beside them.

“Bucky’s ancestors aren’t gonna curse him anymore,” Steve offers by way of answer.

Sam nods in approval, as though this is a normal thing for anyone to say.

“Good, good,” he says. “Never piss off the ancestors. Freddy Krueger did and look what happened to him.”

   
The others emerge from their hayride, rosy-cheeked and laughing as well. They each have a cup of fresh apple cider and Natasha and Clint are bickering over some donuts. Peggy and Angie are sharing an apple turnover.

“How was the corn maze?” Peggy asks, offering Steve her cup.

He takes it to take a sip of the apple cider.

“Sam and Bucky nearly got us murdered like half a dozen times,” he says. The apple cider is cool and crisp. It tastes like he’s drinking an apple. “This is good.”

Peggy smiles as he hands it back to her.

“Only you three would find murder in a corn maze,” she says.

“What are you talking about?” Clint suddenly interjects, his voice low and haunted over half a donut. “Where else would you find a murder?”

Which is absurd in a very Clint Barton way, but also not untrue, so the group collectively shudders.

“I’m hungry,” Bucky complains.

“I could go for a donut,” Steve agrees.

“That’s your problem,” Natasha says. Steve would be more offended if there wasn’t a piece of straw sticking out of her hair. “Meet us by the pumpkins.”

“Rude,” Bucky says, but then he grabs Steve’s shoulder and drags him back to the barn.

  
Bucky and Steve take their time looking around the barn’s offerings. There’s apple pie and apple turnovers, apple muffins, and pumpkin loaves. Steve gets in line for the donuts and Bucky tells him he’ll be right back and disappears.

By the time Steve gets to the front and pays for two donuts and two apple ciders, Bucky’s appeared at his shoulder.

“Look!” he says, excitedly, and Steve turns to see an _enormous_ caramel apple thrust into his face.

“Bucky, that’s bigger than my face,” he says, eyes straining to take in all of the apple.

“I know!” Bucky sounds delighted. “Isn’t it great? It’s gonna get stuck in our teeth and we’re gonna gripe about it the entire way back, but it’s gonna be _worth it_.”

Steve feels dubious about all of this, but he can’t deny that Bucky’s enthusiasm is...catching.

He swaps the apple cider for the caramel apple and then the two of them realize how many apple-flavored items they’re carrying and start laughing.

“I’m gonna turn into an apple,” Steve says.

“I’ll cover you in caramel and eat you,” Bucky pronounces.

Steve raises an eyebrow and Bucky doesn’t even have the wherewithal to blush. He just grins wickedly.

“I said what I said, Rogers.”

Steve snorts and happily starts on his caramel apple, which, true to Bucky’s words, sticks to his teeth, which is both delightful and _extremely_ annoying.

Yes, Steve thinks. Yes, he will be griping about it to Bucky the entire way back.

And yes, he supposes. It will probably be worth it.

  
They join the group at the pumpkin patch. Steve’s finished his cider by now, but is still working on his caramel apple. The group is spread out, hunting for the perfect pumpkin.

“Nice,” Sam says, nodding at the caramel apple. “Love to see you eating real food.” 

Steve flips Sam off and Sam grins.  
  
“How’s this one?” Sam asks, holding up a pumpkin It’s lopsided and about the size of his head.

“A little weird,” Steve says. “Why’s it look like that?”

“Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Rogers,” Sam says.

“I feel like that doesn’t actually answer my question,” Steve says. “But, okay.”

He does his own search, looking for a pumpkin that will sit on his art desk, until the week before Halloween, when he decorates it. Because he’s an artist, Steve likes the ones that are strangely shaped--that have a growth or are lopsided or are ovals instead of circles. He likes things that are strange and unloved. But then, there’s another side of him that craves perfection too. Every time he finds a pumpkin that’s smooth and nearly perfectly round, there’s a part of him that sighs in relief.

He’s near the far end of the patch when he nearly bumps into Bucky, both reaching for the same, perfectly circular pumpkin.

“Oh!” Bucky laughs as he rubs his forehead.

“Ow,” Steve agrees.

“You tryna take my pumpkin, Rogers?” Bucky asks, squinting at him. 

“No way,” Steve says. “I saw it first. You’re trying to take my pumpkin.”  
  
“That feels like a yes,” Bucky says. His mouth quirks up at the corner. “I’ve been wandering this area for ages.”

“Yeah, I saw it across the field and came for it,” Steve says, faux serious. “This pumpkin is meant for me. It’s my purpose.”

“Your purpose is a pumpkin?” Bucky asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I don’t make the rules.”

“You don’t seem like you follow them either,” Bucky says, eyebrow raised and something about that makes Steve grin.

“Depends on the rule,” he says. He picks up the pumpkin they had both been reaching for and turns it in his hands. It’s perfectly round, smooth, no lumps or growth or defects.

“Sounds arbitrary,” Bucky says.

“So are rules,” Steve replies.

“Guess I can’t argue with that,” Bucky says. Evidently, he gives up his claim on Steve’s pumpkin, because he begins roaming for another one again.

Steve doesn’t really know why, but he follows after him.

“I’m always bad at picking anything,” Bucky says after a few minutes of looking through pumpkins, mouth curved down in a frown, a wrinkle between his brows. “I’m always looking for the perfect one—not perfect for me, just perfect. It’s impossible, I know, but I still look for it.”

“What would be wrong with anything less than perfect?” Steve asks. He knows, on some level, it’s a hypocritical question to ask, holding the perfect pumpkin as he is.

“I don’t know,” Bucky admits. “Nothing. I think it’s a control thing. It makes me—I go all tight and nervous if it isn’t perfect.”

Steve tilts his head, watching Bucky. He picks up a pumpkin, rotates it in his hands. He finds one side slightly deformed and shakes his head, puts it back.

“They’re vegetables, Bucky,” Steve says softly. “They don’t choose how they grow.”

Bucky picks up one that looks more like an eggplant than a pumpkin it’s so long.

“I know,” he replies quietly. “I know it’s not their fault. I like the misshapen ones too, but it’s up to me to find the ones that aren’t. I have to have the perfect one.”

“If you don’t—” Steve asks without asking.

“I um,” Bucky laughs. “Panic.”

The laughter doesn’t really reach his eyes, which hold just an edge of anxiety. Steve thinks about everything he knows about Bucky, about his perfect, enviable life, and he thinks about him here, admitting his anxiety about pumpkins to a near perfect stranger.

Bucky picks up a small pumpkin that’s more oval than round, smooth on all sides, with skin shading green to orange, and a perfect, thick stump at the end.

“Oh,” he says. He looks at it and he looks at Steve and his cheeks nearly glow with pleasure. “It reminds me of you.”

Steve doesn’t know what that means. But he has to admit, it’s beautiful in its own weird way.

“It’s a pumpkin that looks like it’s trying its hardest not to be one,” Bucky says. “It’s perfect.”

It isn’t. It objectively isn’t.

“I think I like it,” Bucky smiles and Steve’s chest feels warm despite himself.

  
They meet the rest of the group back at the barn. Everyone compares pumpkins with a laugh. Sam’s pumpkin is the size of his forearm and nearly perfectly circular, Natasha’s is tiny, a baby pumpkin, Peggy and Angie found weird, oblong matching pumpkins, and Clint—he has a squash in his hands.

“What?” Clint blinks at them. “Squash are people too.”

They pay for their pumpkins and buy more apple cider and apple cider donuts for the road.

At the entrance, waiting to turn onto the road back to the train, Steve looks back at the farm one more time. The sun is setting, lighting the barn and the field all aglow, a golden peach settling onto everything he can see.

Steve breathes in the cool, fresh air and takes out his phone.

He centers everything and takes a picture.

  
The train ride back is lazier, sleepier. Everyone is full of too much apple-flavored everything, reinvigorated by nature and a day just out in fresh fields of growth. The seating configuration remains much the same and Steve finds, to his surprise, that he doesn’t mind.

“This seat taken?” Bucky asks, hovering in the aisle next to the empty seat.

“It will be when you sit your ass down,” Steve says and Bucky looks so positively delighted that Steve nearly takes it back.

Instead, he stays quiet as Bucky settles himself into the seat next to him.

“Thanks, Stevie,” he says and actually sounds as warm as he looks.

Steve somehow doesn’t have the heart to correct him this time. Instead, he leans over so that Bucky can look out the window as the train starts to take them back to school.

Bucky smiles at him as he leans over and he’s so close, Steve can feel Bucky’s hair brush his cheek.

  
Once he gets back to his apartment, Steve puts his pumpkin on his art desk, as promised.

He looks at it, with its smooth, sloping sides, bright orange color, and perfect pumpkin shape.

It reminds him of Bucky.

  
Steve settles into a new routine without realizing that’s what he’s doing. It’s like he blinks and suddenly Bucky is everywhere he looks. He comes and takes his seat next to him in their political science class. He meets up with Sam for lunch, when Steve happens to be with him. He runs into Bucky at his favorite coffee cart. On Thursday’s, when Steve has the late shift at Pym’s, Bucky comes in with Tony and Natasha and Rhodey and they order pizza to eat in the bright and gaudy establishment. When Steve looks up from the counter, he sees Bucky’s eyes flicker over to him. He smiles at him widely and something warm settles into Steve’s stomach.

He tries to find him exhausting, but what’s exhausting is trying to find him exhausting. Bucky Barnes is everything he despises in a person, on principle, but in reality he’s nice and funny and warm and he has a smile that lights up his face so brightly that Steve can barely stand to look at it.

When Steve’s working at the library, Bucky will come in and work at a study carrel under the large window with the Elm tree. If it’s during the day, the sun will filter in and catch on golden brown strands. He’ll have his headphones in, a pile of books next to him, his laptop open. Bucky’s a lot of things, and, surprisingly, a hard worker is one of them.

Sometimes, when Steve’s putting away books and Bucky’s in, he’ll watch him out of the corner of his eyes. When Bucky’s concentrating—like, really concentrating—he’ll catch his tongue between his teeth, a little pink flashing out from his mouth. His eyebrows will furrow, a little crease between them. He won’t know anyone is watching him and it’s at these moments that he almost feels touchable.

And then there are the times when he’s surrounded by people, which, to be fair, is almost all the time. Even when he’s deep in concentration, he’s interrupted by someone or another at least once an hour—one of his frat brothers bumping fists, or a sorority girl flirting, or a freshman shyly saying hi and that they thought he was brilliant during the last soccer game.

Those are the times when he’s untouchable—when Steve looks over and someone else is leaning against his study carrell and Bucky is laughing with them, talking to their future fraternity president, the star of the soccer team, the golden son of a senator. Bucky is all too much at once, so Steve tries his best to avoid him, to make sure their circles don’t collide too much or too often.

It’s impossible when Bucky seems to seek him out everywhere he goes.

“Are you going to dinner?” he’ll ask if Steve has an afternoon shift, or “Have you seen the new graffiti on the engineering building?” if Steve’s class gets cancelled, or “I’m dyin’, Stevie, why don’t we get ourselves some coffee?”

Steve tries desperately to say no to him. He’s busy or he’s full or he has to work on his painting.

Bucky never seems offended, though. He never seems disappointed. He just smiles at Steve, says “Okay, next time then!” as though he knows there will be a next time, which, of course, there always is.

  
And then there’s the Fall day in November that’s so beautiful it’s like New York forgot it’s the middle of November. Steve has been working so many hours at Pym’s and at the library and in the art studio that he’s going cross-eyed. So when Bucky runs into him on the lawn between the art building and the business school and Steve nearly staggers on his feet from exhaustion and Bucky says “Come on, let’s just have a quiet afternoon. It’ll be exactly what you need,” Steve doesn’t have the energy to say no.

They lie under Bucky’s favorite tree on the quad, a large Oak that’s desperately clinging to its very last leaves despite Fall being quite over. Bucky buys them sandwiches and sodas and warm pumpkin scones and tells Steve to sit down and rest his brain.

“You gotta take it easy sometimes, Steve,” Bucky says. He leans against the tree, unwrapped sandwich between his hands. Next to him, there’s a worn copy of _Return of the King_. “I never see you catch a breath.”

“I’m fine,” Steve mumbles into his sandwich. He feels his bones ache as he says it, his eyes prickle with exhaustion. “I can handle myself.”

“Handling and taking care of aren’t the same thing,” Bucky says. “You’re about to fall over on your feet.”

“You’re not my mom,” Steve mutters sourly and twists open the top of his cherry soda.

“Yeah?” Bucky asks. “And what does she say? She know you’re running yourself ragged in college?”

That makes something low and heavy pang in Steve’s chest. He’s been so busy, he’s barely had a chance to think about his mother lately. He hadn’t eaten a single slice of apple pie in her honor and he does that every Fall. Suddenly he feels so awful he has to put the soda down.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, alarmed.

“I’m fine,” Steve says, but it’s clear he isn’t fine. Fuck.

“I didn’t—I don’t know what I said but I’m sorry,” Bucky says. He’s leaning closer to Steve, a sincere look on his face. “Listen, I run my mouth sometimes, I don’t think, just ignore—”

“No,” Steve almost croaks. He clears the emotion out of his throat. “It’s okay. I was just thinking about how Fall was her favorite season, and.”

Bucky’s not stupid, so something like recognition and horror flickers over his face.

“Steve, I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot.”

“Not your fault,” Steve says. He opens his soda again. “She was sick for a while. Passed away my freshman year here.”

“Jesus,” Bucky says. “God, here I am always complaining about my parents. Your dad—?”

“Died when I was a baby,” Steve gives a wan smile. “I don’t have anyone else.”

Steve doesn’t like to see the pity in people’s eyes, so he avoids looking at Bucky then. He drinks his soda, gets his feelings under control, and then breaks his scone in half.

When he looks back up, Bucky’s looking at him strangely, almost furiously.

“You have us, idiot,” he says. There’s no pity there, not even a little. “Sam and Peggy and even me.”

“Even you?” Steve asks with a half-smile.

“Yeah, dumbass,” Bucky says. He looks so mad about it that Steve nearly laughs. “We’re friends, right?”

That almost startles Steve. Are they? Are he and Bucky Barnes friends? Objectively, maybe, but when had it happened? When had Bucky gone from his potential arch nemesis, the antithesis to everything he is, to...friend?

“I guess so,” Steve ventures.

“Damn straight you guess so,” Bucky says. He looks satisfied with that lukewarm answer. He finishes his sandwich and his scone and puts the trash in his backpack carefully. “Now that that’s been settled, I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up if a natural disaster occurs or like, aliens finally come for me.”

“Jesus Christ, you fucking nerd,” Steve says.

Bucky smiles as he stretches out and closes his eyes.

His breathing evens out soon after and Steve is left with his thoughts and his feelings.

For the first time in a month, he itches to take out his charcoal pencils and draw—not something in particular, but to just draw something.

  
In the end, he gives in.

He takes out his sketch pad and his pencils and he sketches the thing that settles the feeling in his chest the most—Bucky’s quiet form, his long eyelashes brushing his cheeks, a single, orange leaf falling down into his brown hair.

* * * *

It’s a Friday night after a mid-week game that Bucky finds Steve alone at a table for two at Triskellion Roasters, the student-favorite coffee shop just off the edge of campus. Tony’s throwing another party at Rho Delta, which Bucky is half interested in and half tired by the thought of. Mid-week games always exhaust him and the draw against Binghamton had been hard fought. Their only goal had come from Clint at the 85th minute off of a mistake from one of their defenders. SHIELD had breathed a sigh of relief to get the one point, but they had struggled enough that Bucky and T’Challa had stayed late with Coach Fury discussing where they had gone wrong and what could be changed for the next game.

He knows he’s being super lame and, honestly, if he was in Tony’s position, he would question his own commitment to his social standing, but all he really wants to do is get in bed with a pint of his favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavor and continue his marathon of Gilmore Girls. He had accidentally started listening to a podcast called Gilmore Guys, courtesy of, strangely, Fandral and it had been so funny that he’d decided to give the show a try. Now he’s in the middle of Season 4 and he’s so mad about Rory and Jess and Rory and Dean that he keeps watching episodes in distress instead of looking at his LSAT books in distress instead. Whoops.

Anyway, he walks into the Triskellion for an evening bagel and coffee before traipsing to the student store for his pint of Americone Dream, when he spies a familiar head of blond.

Bucky has been slowly ingratiating his way into Steve’s life. He’s there with Steve in class, he’s there with Steve after class, he runs into Steve on the quad or by his art studio or sees him when he comes to sketch while Sam’s at practice. It’s not all deliberate, although some of it is certainly calculated timing. The truth is that SHIELD is a very small campus and once Bucky knows where Steve is most likely to be, it’s easy to engineer ways to run into him. It’s not all malevolent anyway. Bucky likes running into Steve. When he’s stressed and his father is on his mind or Tony’s getting on his last nerve or Brock’s said something particularly stupid, he sees Steve across the lawn, with his hair stuck up in every direction, some paint stain somewhere on him, always looking a little frazzled, a little checked out and, Bucky doesn’t know why, but it calms him. He likes knowing that Steve Rogers is out there, constantly annoyed, constantly grumpy, constantly fighting for something or with something.

Bucky just likes knowing Steve, and that’s the real truth.

He’s not stupid. He knows that this started as a bet and he knows that this is still a bet. It’s not personal. He still has everything on the line for this, to turn Steve Rogers into a swan or whatever the metaphor is. He doesn’t know if Steve has noticed, but he’s already turning heads, just by being with Bucky. People ask about him more. People stop him on the quad more. The last party Bucky had been to, someone had actually asked him where Steve was.

It’s working, Bucky thinks. People are noticing Steve Rogers.

Perhaps, most of all, Bucky Barnes himself.

“This seat taken?” Bucky asks his usual with a self-confident grin.

It’s to his surprise, then, that Steve doesn’t answer him. For a moment Bucky’s confidence flickers. Then he realizes that Steve has his earbuds in.

Bucky taps on the top of Steve’s sketchbook and Steve startles, looks up at him. His expression--so stern, so concentrated, softens almost immediately. 

“Hey,” he says and removes his earbuds. “What are you doing here?”

“Coffee and bagel,” Bucky says. “Coffee meets bagel.”

He laughs at the stupid dating app joke and Steve rolls his eyes in response.

“I’m just sketching,” Steve says. “Have to plan my final project for Erskine’s class.”

“How’s that going?” Bucky asks, taking a seat.

“Okay,” Steve says. He taps the end of his charcoal pencil against the paper. “We’ve turned in two pieces. One was a painting of Sam, kind of abstract. The other was of Brooklyn. Well, it was supposed to be. Not sure what it ended up being.”

“Yeah? Aren’t artists supposed to know their message or whatever?” Bucky asks. He reaches across the table and plucks Steve’s coffee mug.

“Hey!” Steve protests without any real heat. He sighs and shrugs. “Sometimes. Sometimes you just paint what you feel.”

“What were you feeling when you painted Brooklyn?” Bucky asks. He takes a sip of the coffee and makes a face. It’s lukewarm now. There’s nothing worse than lukewarm coffee.

“A little homesick, I guess,” Steve admits. “Erskine...he said he liked it. But I could tell he was expecting more. I can’t read him. I just don’t know what he wants.”

“Hey,” Bucky says and reaches across to cover Steve’s hand with his own briefly. “You’re the best artist I know. I’m sure you’re killing it.”

“How many artists do you know?” Steve asks wryly.

That makes Bucky give him a tight smile.

“More than you think,” he says.

Steve sighs and shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I think everything I do is fine, but you can tell when someone connects with your piece. When you’ve made something that makes them stop and say, _wow_. And nothing I’ve done so far has made him stop.”

“What about you?” Bucky asks.

“Huh?”

“Has what you’ve made made you stop and say _wow_?” he asks.

Maybe it’s a stupid question, he doesn’t know, he’s not an artist, but Steve frowns a little, his lips turned down in a way that shouldn’t be adorable, but which Bucky can’t help but feel, deeply, is.

“I guess not,” he says.

“Well, then,” Bucky smiles. “How are you going to make someone else feel something you don’t?”

Steve stares at him then and Bucky gives him a little eyebrow waggle and Steve shakes his head and puffs out a laugh.

“Yeah, fine,” he says. “I’ll think about it.”

“Maybe you should feel about it,” Bucky says smugly.

“Okay, Professor,” Steve says with a roll of his eyes and Bucky finishes the lukewarm coffee with a grimace.

“Hey,” he says after he finishes. “Let’s do something.”

Steve looks like he’s going to put up a fight, but then he puts down his pen.

“Yeah, okay,” he says. “I have an idea.”  
  
  
The Guardians Art Collective is a small, community-owned art collective and theater space downtown that Bucky would never have thought to look for if not for Steve. It’s tucked in between an old used bookstore called Titan Books and one of those seedy dive bars that never looks like it’s open or in good standing with the public health department. The Collective space itself is painted red on the outside, with a black awning that juts out toward the sidewalk. Steve and Bucky get their hands stamped and go inside.

Bucky’s--well, he’s a little nervous for some reason. He’s a jock, right? He’s comfortable around rich kids and frat bros, people who spend their weekends drinking and comparing hook ups. Like yeah, okay, Bucky’s a secret nerd, but that doesn’t invalidate the part of him that _is_ a frat bro. He’s never really been around deeply intellectual or deeply artistic crowds, although he supposes the two aren’t necessarily one and the same. Still, he tries to smooth down his hair and look unassuming.

He watches the people around them--hipsters with flowers in their beards and bright yellow tights that belong in the 90s, and artistic types with combat boots and bracelets lining their wrists, and people who look like they would be comfortable at a biker bar, all tattoos and spiked hair, but who are sitting in squashed couches and heavily cushioned chairs that look like they would be a great place to nap. 

The interior is darker than the outside of the collective, with art displayed all over the walls, and couches and chairs and bean bags spread randomly across the floor. There’s a raised stage with a curtain and blue backlight.

“Hey,” Steve says. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

Bucky looks at him quizzically, but does as he’s told. He lowers himself onto one end of a beat up brown leather couch two rows from the stage.

He texts Nat nervously-- _am I going to get killed?? Are they going to capture my soul for art?? HELP_ \--and looks around, anxiously waiting for Steve. Steve doesn’t appear again, but someone in fishnet tights and knee-high Doc Martens does come out to the mic.

He--well, Bucky thinks it’s a he, but then they identify as a “they” so he internally corrects himself-- _they_ look into the audience with a nervous smile.

“It starts when I am born,” they say. They tuck jet black hair behind a heavily earringed, well, ear. “I come forth, from my mother. It is pink and violent, a red canal, my welcome into the world. I wail. I see. I hear.”

They gasp, a high-pitched, keening sound that startles Bucky.

“No! No, it is all wrong. It is an egg, the white shell around me. I beat and I beat and I beat. I emerge. Yes, I think. I...am a fish.”

Bucky stares. No, he like, really fucking _stares_.

They bow and everyone applauds. They step back. They regroup and step forward again. This time people covered in sheer black sheets step up behind them.

It only gets weirder from there.

  
Bucky has never claimed to understand art. His parents had taken him and Becca to the Louvre during winter break in middle school and the two of them had found it cool for about a half an hour and then spent the rest of the time walking around, making fun of tourists, and eating croissants from the café. He can recognize art—both fine and performance—that is pleasing to him, objectively, like obviously _Starry Night_ is beautiful and anything by Dali is fucking weird, but cool—but he can’t claim to _understand_ any of it.

In this case, he can’t claim to know if he likes it or not either.

The performances follow, one after the other—someone reads a poem and it’s fine, then they start to chant and people are writhing on the ground in sheets and that’s weird. Someone starts a monologue from King Lear and that’s something Bucky can get behind, but then halfway through, his voice gets higher and bigger until he’s shrieking and clawing at his face and he falls to the ground, sobbing, as confetti falls around him. In the background, someone starts a soundtrack of wolves howling.

Bucky doesn’t get it.

It’s weird and he’s uncomfortable and everyone around him seems engrossed and he doesn’t know _where the fuck_ _Steve went_. He’s about to get up and leave when a deadpan-looking Asian man comes up on the stage.

He identifies himself as “Morita” and says “We have a special presentation for you tonight. It is an art installation, in a way. Interactive fine art. Actually I do not know what it is called, but I have seen it once before and it is mesmerizing. Please hold all applause until the end.” 

And then, without warning, the light dims and a spotlight illuminates a circle on the stage.

Someone walks out—a woman, biologically. She’s absolutely, stark naked. She has on a blindfold. She comes and stands on a pedestal, stands as still as a statue.

And then, before Bucky can process, a familiar, small figure with a mop of blond hair comes up beside her.

On the pedestal, the woman is inches taller than Steve, but that doesn’t seem to bother him. He has on baggy beige pants and a white shirt that is such a close fit it shows how small he really is. Bucky thinks, fleetingly, his hands could fit around the entirety of Steve’s ribs.

Steve has a palette and a thick paintbrush in his hands. He seems to rock on the balls of his feet for a moment, watching, waiting.

Then, he begins to paint.

  
It’s strange, because Bucky doesn’t ever remember anything ever being so quiet. In every other performance there was some kind of music on, something to tie it together. For Steve, there’s nothing. It’s a complete, all-encompassing silence. It presses in on him, on the audience around him. It’s thick. It feels black.

Bucky can hear the breathing of the audience around him, his own breathing, Steve’s breathing, coming in smooth, shallow inhales and exhales. He can hear the sound of the brush as it dips into paint, the sound of the bristles and the paint as it hits skin and glides smoothly over. Once, someone sneezes and it’s almost deafening.

The silence wraps around him, around them, around Steve. It is the most intimate experience Bucky has ever had.

He can’t tear his eyes away from the painted model, the statue as she unfolds—dark blues and purples, light oranges and peach, brilliant reds, startling white. The colors stand out and they blend together. The model doesn’t move and Steve doesn’t stop. He gets paint in his hair, of course.

He paints for what feels like an hour, or maybe days, or mere seconds. Bucky can’t breathe near the end of it, he thinks he’s become the model himself, a colorful peacock, a living statue.

Steve dips the brush in black.

The model closes her eyes.

He paints a broad stripe across her closed eyelids, temple to temple. Then he takes more black and paints a slash over her mouth.

She is a living thing, come alive, and then silenced.

Bucky feels his heart break, his pulse hammering against his rib cage.

Steve steps back and lets the paintbrush and palette chatter to the ground.

The model opens her eyes.

  
The audience seems to take a collective, shuddering, emotional breath. Then they break into applause.

  
Someone goes after Steve, but Bucky can’t pay attention to them. He’ll never be able to pay attention to anyone again.

Steve comes back out ten minutes later, in the clothes he came in, small and unassuming. Some people recognize him and give him a nod of respect. Bucky feels inordinate pride when he comes to sit next to him.

“Steve,” he whispers as Steve sits down and he only barely restrains himself from wrapping Steve in the hug of his life. “Holy shit, Steve!”

“Was it okay?” Steve whispers back and the smile he offers is so small and shy, Bucky can’t believe it. There he was, minutes ago, baring his soul for the world and now that he’s come back into himself, he doesn’t know how _fucking incredible he was._

“You’re a _genius_ ,” Bucky whispers reverently and Steve blushes pink and looks pleased.

“Bucky,” Steve whispers a minute later.

Bucky looks at him.

“Don’t hate me.”

Bucky frowns, is about to say he could never hate him, when Morita comes back on stage.

“I hear there is someone new in the audience tonight. Is that right?”

Somehow, for some reason, every person seems to look at Bucky.

“I hear he is something of a writer. Is that right, Bucky Barnes?”

Bucky, suddenly, feels hot behind the ears.

“Oh no,” he says out loud. “There’s been some kind of mistake. I’m not—”

“No need to be shy.” Morita smiles at him. “We are family here. Art is art.”

“I don’t write—” Bucky tries again, louder. “I haven’t in years—“

“I think he needs a hand,” Morita says, looking around.

To Bucky’s horror, Morita starts a chant. _Bucky! Bucky! Bucky!_

To his left, Steve is looking at him like he’s so sorry and please don’t kill me and this will be good for you.

And Bucky’s done keg stands, he’s done talent shows, he’s participated in all manners of Greek Week events. He’s not shy. He’s just never done art.

“Say whatever comes to your head,” Steve says, leaning in and whispering to him.

Bucky distinctly feels his mouth brush the outside shell of his ear and he feels his heart thud in his chest.

Bucky likes attention. He isn’t his father’s son for nothing. He’s nervous and embarrassed, but he’s excited too. There’s an adrenaline rush here in trying something new, something he might utterly fail at.

He gets up and the audience cheers. He makes his way to the stage, the spotlight on him. He’s all nervous energy and extreme panic. But he’s something else too, something he doesn’t recall feeling in a very long time—he’s thrilled. He’s invested.

“I’m no artist,” he says when he takes the mic. “In fact, my idea of art is picking out Clip Art.”

It’s a dad joke for sure, but one that lands with this room of millennials. Ah yes, Clip Art, of course. Remember the Microsoft Paperclip? Memories.

“I’ve never read a single poem outside of class, unless the Hogwarts Sorting Hat poem counts,” he smiles and the audience laughs again. Of course he can charm them. He’s Bucky Barnes.

“And once I tried pottery and got clay stuck in my baby sister’s hair. She had to cut it all off. She’s a teenager now, so I should earn her forgiveness in about another decade.” 

Again, warm, appreciative laughter. Bucky can see Steve smiling at him and it fortifies him.

“But I guess, when I was younger, I really liked short stories,” Bucky says after a moment. “I would spin yarns in my head, all aliens and spaceships and time travel. I’d tell them to my sister, to my parents, to my action figures. I used to really love writing.”

The audience smiles at him sympathetically. There’s a story he’s not telling, maybe one of heartbreak, maybe one of loss, no one can say, but everyone can feel it.

“So I thought I’d try doing it again here tonight,” Bucky says. “Telling you a story. I don’t have one in mind, so forgive me if it has no beginning, middle, or end.”

The audience doesn’t seem to mind. Steve beams.

  
If pressed to give a description of the weird story Bucky made up on the spot, he couldn’t say how it started, how it ended, or what it even was about. The audience seemed receptive, laughing in all of the right places, sighing in all of the right places, and, surprisingly, taking breaths as they got emotional. Bucky was captivated by their responses, but he was even more captivated by how he felt--alive, thrumming with energy, calm, excited.

It’s the most present he’s felt in his own life in a very long time.

At some point he must end his tale because the light flashes in his ears and everyone in the audience stands up, gives him a standing ovation. He colors a little, thrilled and pleased, and he sees Steve’s small head, bobbing up and down as he cheers with them.

Bucky stumbles down from the stage, drunk on the energy in the room and the feeling of accomplishment, like he created something that _meant_ something--to him and to everyone else.

“Steve,” he says brightly and he can’t help it, he wraps his arms around him.

“Buck,” Steve laughs and gives him a hug back.

He has to stand on his tiptoes a bit, so Bucky gets carried away and lifts him up. Steve gives a soft squeak, but doesn’t let go and Bucky buries his face in the warmth of his shoulder. Distantly, he registers that Steve smells like paint and soap, which makes sense, since he still has flecks of paint embedded into his neck.

“That was--” Bucky resurfaces. His face is pink, but so is Steve’s. They both look extravagantly happy.

“You were so great, Buck,” Steve says. “Where’d you learn to story tell like that?”

“I used to want to be an author. When I was little, I wanted to write books. But god, I haven’t written in so long,” Bucky laughs. “I thought I was gonna pass out. I have no idea what I said. Did I make any sense?”  
  
“There was a dinosaur alien,” Steve says with a laugh himself. “You don’t remember the dinosaur alien?”

“Shit!” Bucky exclaims. “I made up an _alien dinosaur_ and I _forgot about it_?”

“I’m sure someone was recording for the YouTube channel,” Steve says with a smile. 

“There has to be a million dollar idea in there somewhere, right?” Bucky asks. He nearly sways on his feet from adrenaline.

“Oh yeah,” Steve says. “The dinosaur alien genre is just waiting to be revived.”

“I wish Michael Crichton wasn’t dead,” Bucky says sadly.

Steve just looks amused. Then he puts a hand on Bucky’s elbow.

“Want to head out?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He follows Steve out of the theater, nearly bouncing on his heels. He has so much energy he doesn’t know what to do with it. He stretches his arms above his head. “God, that was so _fun_. I just felt--it was such a rush. I don’t know what I said, but it was just coming from, I don’t know, somewhere inside. Oh and you were so great, Stevie. That living statue painting? Did you know you were going to do that? Have you done it before? She looked _amazing_ , Steve. Like really, it was so, I dunno, _vibrant_ and the air was like so still, I didn’t know silence had a _sound_?”

He knows he’s babbling, he genuinely cannot stop. At some point, Steve stops, turns toward him, laughing.

His hand rests on Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky’s so high, he’s so thrilled, he nearly scoops Steve up again. He thinks, it would be so easy to do.

“Are you hungry?” Steve asks.

“Starved!” Bucky says.

“How about some pizza?” Steve smiles.

When Bucky smiles back, he feels like he does it with every muscle, through every pore. It’s overkill, maybe, but genuine.

  
Steve leads them back to Pym’s, where they sit, sharing an entire cheese-and-olive pizza, an order of garlic breadsticks, and two large Cokes, laughing and talking and leaning close to each other until it becomes so late that Hank insists they have to go home.

Steve still has paint stuck to his neck, so Bucky reaches forward and rubs a thumb across the splotch until it rubs away. Steve’s skin warms under his fingertip, but he doesn’t move away.

“Thanks,” Steve says, sleepy and pink, blue eyes sparkling at him.

It’s one of the best nights of Bucky’s life.

  
It stays in his head long after that night ends, the way that he had felt, how alive he had grown doing something he had forgotten he had loved to do.

November starts to draw to an end and everything intensifies with it--midterms come and pass, papers are written, soccer games are played, fraternity parties are attended. Bucky sucks it up and goes to DC to meet with his father’s Georgetown Law contact who, of course, ends up being the Dean of Admissions. The man is nice enough, but Bucky can’t force himself to smile fakely enough. When the man asks him whether he’s interested in law, Bucky thinks he might say yes, but he honestly can’t remember. He spends the entire weekend wishing Steve were there with him. He thinks Steve would look at the Potomac and have so much to paint.

And Steve--Bucky finally coaxes him into giving him his number--well, really, he steals Steve’s phone one class when Steve’s to sleepy and grumpy to watch his belongings too closely and he programs his own phone number into it. Steve doesn’t have to text him, but he does.

They text a lot now. Every time a text comes in with the emojis Bucky’s assigned Steve (STEVIE with the paint palette and the ogre’s face), he can’t help but smile.

“You look happy,” Natasha tells him one day.

It’s after soccer practice and he’s resting on one of the benches, the field lit by floodlights. SHIELD has had an incredible season so far--they’ve only lost one game and drawn two games, which means they’ve been celebrating more, but practicing more too. Natasha has dance practice until late, so they sometimes meet up after on the field, to drink Gatorade and split a packet of M&Ms.

Bucky’s just replied to something stupid Steve sent him--an article about some employees stealing $50,000 worth of spiders in Philadelphia or something--and it leaves him with residual happiness on his face, as all conversations with Steve do.

“We’re good this season,” he says. He leans back onto his hands, his legs stretched out onto the row in front of them.

Natasha currently has possession of the bag of M&Ms and Bucky’s slowly letting the sweat cool off his body. He knows he smells disgusting, but so does she, so they complement each other in a way.

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s about the soccer,” she says, amused. She looks in the bag--Natasha’s one of those color weirdos, convinced that certain colors taste better than others. She likes the reds and blues. Strangely patriotic, for a Russian.

“I like my research project?” Bucky offers.

Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“Try again.”

Bucky sighs and slumps forward, stretches toward his toes, and then straightens.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I just feel better. Happier.”

“You look it,” Natasha says. She picks out a blue M&M and passes the bag to Bucky. “Any reason?”

Bucky thinks about the secret stash of sci fi and fantasy books that have been growing in his room. Last weekend, he and Steve had found themselves with nothing to do and had gone to the bookstore next to the Collective and Bucky had ended up buying nearly all of their sci fi and fantasy offerings. He thinks about the notebook Steve gave him--it was a stupid thing, with a little astronaut on it--and how he’s been sitting at his desk in between papers and readings, just writing. Nothing is anything yet, not really, but he feels something settle into himself every time he writes a page or even a paragraph. He can see things starting to take shape in his head, stories he can write, worlds he’d like to explore.

He thinks about how he hasn’t kissed anyone in months, but he’s never felt less lonely.

“I have my reasons,” he says and shrugs.

“Uh huh.” Natasha knows, there’s no way she doesn’t, but she’s intuitive enough to not bring it up. “People are talking.”

“About?”

“The elections,” Natasha says. “They know Tony’s running. I think someone mentioned T’Challa. Rumlow, but Tony might kill him.”

“ _Rumlow_?” Bucky immediately makes a repulsed face. “Since when does he care about the state of the school?”

“Since when does Tony?” Natasha snorts. “You know it’s a popularity contest. No one worth being student body president ever is student body president.”

“Yeah?” Bucky asks and fishes for a brown M&M. “It could be. We could pick someone who cares. Someone refreshing and innovative. Genuine.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow and unscrews her Gatorade cap.

“Don’t campaign to me,” she says. “If you want to sell Rogers to the school, you have to let them know he’s available. Just because he’s less visible for being a freak and more visible for being around you now--”

“ _Hey_ ,” Bucky says sharply. “He’s not a freak. That’s not cool.”

“I didn’t say I thought that, James,” Natasha says. Her own tone is a little edged, so Bucky backs off, but he’s annoyed by it. Steve isn’t a freak. Steve is fucking amazing. “But the rest of the school doesn’t know him like you do. If you want him to have a shot, you have to repackage him.”

Bucky frowns and lets the chocolate melt on his tongue.

“What do you mean repackage?” he asks.

“Do you remember when Tony first picked him out?” Natasha asks. “What did he seem like to you?”

Bucky’s frown deepens. At this point, that had been so long ago it seems like a different lifetime, a different Bucky.

“A slob,” he says eventually. “A mess. His clothes were too big, wrinkled, his glasses made his eyes look huge, he had paint everywhere. He was a social disaster.”

“Yes,” Natasha says. “They might be unkind observations, but they’re still observations. Just because you’re friends now doesn’t mean he doesn’t come off that way to other people.”

“What are you gonna do, Nat?” Bucky asks. Now he’s getting annoyed. “Give him a makeover? This isn’t a teen movie.”

That makes something a little terrifying come into Natasha’s eyes though. She leans back onto her bench, dancer’s legs stretched out in front of her.

“It’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

“What.” Bucky stares at her.  

“A haircut, some contacts, jeans that fit,” Natasha says. She’s already envisioning this in her head, he can tell. “It wouldn’t be easy, but he has potential.”

“Nat,” Bucky warns.

“What?” she shrugs. “It’s not a bad thing. Imagine him with a haircut. Take a second.”

“No,” Bucky says.

“A shirt that doesn’t go down to his knees.”

“ _No_ ,” Bucky stands resolute.

“Some hipster tattoos crawling out from under a button up,” Natasha muses. “It would go with his starving artist, sloppy hipster vibe. Do you like tattoos?”

Bucky tries desperately not to imagine Steve with ink. He must fail, because Natasha smirks.

“Just think about it,” Natasha says finally. “You need to win a bet and he would be a better president than _Stark_. It’s win/win.”

It’s honestly not the worst thing, objectively, Bucky thinks. Even if he has an ulterior motive, that doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing, in the end. The more he gets to know Steve, the more he believes in him. A student body president who cares--actually _cares_ about the student body? A bet could result in much, much worse things.

“I’ll think about it,” Bucky says with a sigh. “After finals.”

“Sure,” Natasha says and gets to her feet. “After finals.”

* * * *

Finals hits all of them like an unrelenting wave of bricks. Sam’s never at home, always studying at the library, Peggy spends almost all of her time designing blueprints for some architecture class that Steve can’t conceptualize, and Bucky has papers and tests coming out of his eyeballs. Nothing stops, even with the approach of the end of the semester. Sam and Bucky still have home and away soccer games. Steve still has art pieces to add to his portfolio.  At the end of November, he helps Peggy run a food drive with the Women’s Empowerment Society to donate to the food bank and organizes a one man protest about the government’s deregulation of the coal industry, although everyone is much too tired and much too cold to care.

Some people go home for Thanksgiving, but Steve has no home to go to, so he stays on campus. He doesn’t mind, because it gives him time to haunt the library like a ghost and stay in the art studio until far too late.

“This won’t be your final year’s product, Mr. Rogers, but it should begin building the foundation of it,” Professor Erskine tells him. “We’re going to build off of what you start here, so don’t think too deeply on it. I see you using your brain, but I would like you to use your heart.” 

Steve, who’s almost always all heart, doesn’t know what that means.

He stares at his canvas, at the slashes of blue and black and the mixed media he’s trying and tries not to wilt under the weight of his frustration.

 _I give up_ , he thinks more than once. _I just can’t art anymore._

  
Sam invites him to come home with him for the holiday, but Steve declines. He makes up an excuse—it’s too far, it’s too late, he wants to finish his painting. He eats Thanksgiving dinner in his apartment, alone, and misses his mother like an aching limb. She loved pumpkin pie. She loved pumpkin everything.

Everyone comes back to campus and Steve’s routine doesn’t really change, but the feel of campus does. The grounds are colder now, the air brisk, the possibility of snow hanging heavily over them. The students are over-caffeinated and sleep-deprived, their moods as tense and dreary as the weather outside. More than once, on his library shift, he finds one student or another having a breakdown. One time, it’s Peter himself and Steve takes the rest of his shift, tells him to go back to his dorm and take a nap.

It’s stressful, it’s gloomy, it’s miserable. Steve hasn’t seen anyone he likes in so long that he kind of assumes he might be the only person left in the world. That’s nonsense, of course, because campus is just a bunch of walking, talking student zombies, but he misses Sam, he misses Peggy, he misses--Bucky.

They haven’t really texted in a week or so, since Bucky had gone back home for break and been busy there, and then he’d come back and they were on opposite studying schedules. Finally, they have their last politics and media class together, so Steve’s able to at least catch him there.

“Hey, stranger,” he says as Bucky, usually so chipper and bright in the morning, collapses blearily onto his seat.

“Steve,” Bucky says, letting out an explosive sigh. “I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know the time. What’s my name? Do I go here? I’m going insane. Help.”

Steve feels empathy, of course. He feels as frenetic as Bucky seems, he’s just better at tamping down all of that crazy.

“How do we have a week of classes left?” Steve complains in response. “My brain is already dying.”

“I’ve written so many papers I don’t have any words left to give.” Bucky groans and tilts his head onto Steve’s desk. “You hear me, Stevie? No words. I got _no words_.”

Steve makes a sympathetic groan and, unexpectedly, lets his hand drift into Bucky’s hair. It’s as soft as it’s always looked. He strokes it and feels disproportionately pleased.

“Just write your papers in gifs,” he suggests. “Buzzfeed does it.”

“Wish Buzzfeed was givin’ me a grade,” Bucky grumbles. Then he lets out a soft sigh of contentment. “Yeah, keep doing that.”

If it looks or feels weird, well, Steve doesn’t think about it. He continues stroking Bucky’s soft, soft hair and lightly discussing ethics in gifs journalism until Professor Danvers walks into the classroom.

“Two days of class left!” she says, cheerfully. “Are you all ready for finals? How about that 15 page paper?”

A collective groan answers her.

“No words left,” Bucky mouths at Steve and makes a hand gesture across his throat like he’s slashing it.

  
Philips is a ruthless librarian, but he’s an understanding one. He knows that his work study staff doesn’t get paid enough to pull late hours when they have to also be studying for finals. He tells Steve that as long as he clocks in and sometimes puts away a book or two, he doesn’t care if Steve spends the rest of his time studying.

It’s December now, their last classes done, reading day before finals week. There’s snow falling lightly outside and Steve hasn’t caught a cold yet, but he shivers thinking of the inevitable one. He’s in an overlarge, old, slouchy sweater, jeans, and a thick blanket scarf. He’s trying not to fall asleep in the lamplight of the library.

Suddenly, from Bucky’s corner, Steve hears a faint _thwump._ He removes his one earbud and closes his laptop. His Color Theory paper can wait.

Steve skirts around other desks until he’s at Bucky’s carrel, where he’s slumped on a pile of books.

“Buck,” Steve whispers. “Bucky.”

Bucky, who’s fallen asleep, doesn’t move.

“Bucky Barnes,” Steve hisses and puts a hand on his shoulder and still Bucky sleeps the sleep of the dead.

“For God’s sake,” Steve mutters and finally relents to shaking Bucky’s shoulders.

In the matter of a second, Bucky is off his stack of books, blinking rapidly, looking around wildly.

“I’m awake! I’m okay! Did I miss the test!”

“Shut up,” Steve says. Then, thinking about it quickly, he tugs at Bucky’s shoulder. “Come on.”

He motions to Bucky to gather his things while he gathers his own from his abandoned desk. He clocks out and leads them out of the library.

  
It’s still snowing, lightly. If it wasn’t the dead of finals, it would be lovely, the light dusting of white, the deep black of the night sky.

Steve takes in a deep breath of cold air and feels himself revive a little.

“Where are we going?” Bucky asks groggily, at his side.

“Home,” Steve says. “Sam’s finishing a group project with Scott Lang, so he won’t be home until late.”

“Oh hey, Scott,” Bucky says, as if just remembering him. “What a weird dude.”

They walk along in silence, Steve leading, Bucky following. He hears nothing but their footsteps and the rustle of snow on trees. It’s a quiet night, a peaceful one. It’s the kind of night Steve could get lost in.

They arrive at the apartment building and Bucky stops him before going in.

“Just one more minute,” he says. His cheeks are pink, but his eyes are glowing bright. He closes them and tilts his face up to the snow.

After a moment of watching him, of tracing the curve of his face and the slope of his nose and his long, soft eyelashes, Steve does the same.

They stay like that for five minutes, breathing it in, just existing.

Bucky opens his eyes again with a resigned smile.

“All right, let’s go.”

  
Steve doesn’t realize he’s bringing Bucky home until he does. There’s a moment on the threshold when he thinks about it and _really realizes_ what he’s doing and then there’s the moment that’s too late and there’s the moment they’re in.

“You and Sam, huh?” Bucky asks. He shrugs out of his coat and hangs it up on a hook by the door. He takes off his boots and places them underneath.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “We’d been talking about it since freshman year. Pretty lucky we got the place we did.”

“Sam’s a good guy,” Bucky says.

“Yeah,” Steve says happily. “He is.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything else to that, just puts his backpack down by the couch in the living room and walks around. He stops by Steve’s art desk, at the half-filled canvas, at the sketches and paintings posted to the wall. There are watercolors he’s done—of Sam, of Peggy, of Angie, of his mom—that are whimsically posted up.

“I’ve never known anyone as talented as you,” Bucky says.

Steve makes some kinda noise and disappears into the kitchen.

“Make yourself at home,” he calls from the counter. “The WiFi network is Black Panther Cave and the password is WakandaForever, with the capitals.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow and Steve shrugs. It was Sam, obviously.

As Bucky settles in, Steve gets two mugs, his jug of almond milk, and a package of chocolate chips he’s hidden away from Sam. He smiles as he pours the milk into the mugs and then more than just a handful of chocolate chips. He warms them and stirs the melted chocolate chips until they disappear into warm, brown milk. Then he grabs a half-eaten bag of marshmallows and brings them to the couch.

“I don’t know how many you like,” Steve says and hands Bucky a bright red mug.

“Thanks!” he says and holds his mug close to his face. “Ahhh hot chocolate. The nectar of the gods.”

“I think we have some Bailey’s if you want to add a kick,” Steve says, trying to figure out where they put it, but Bucky shakes his head.

“Better not to write my potential capstone paper while drunk.”

Steve selects four mini marshmallows for himself and plops them into his mug. Then he draws his legs up and turns on the couch so his whole body is facing Bucky.

It’s kind of funny how small he is compared to Bucky, even though Bucky’s not big at all. He nudged Bucky’s thigh with his socked toe.

“How’s that going?” he asks.

“Okay,” Bucky says after taking a handful of marshmallows for himself. “Danvers is tough, but fair. I ran like six ideas against her and she systematically destroyed every one of them. But like, in a helpful way.”

“I saw the notes you were taking, the first day,” Steve says. He takes a sip of his hot chocolate. “I honestly don’t understand half of what you were looking at. But you were excited about it. It was kinda fun to see.”

Bucky smiles ruefully and runs a hand through his hair. Even slightly wet, it glistens and lands perfectly. Unfair.

“I like political science,” Bucky says. “A lot. I find it super interesting and obviously I know a lot about politics. It makes sense, you know? Do poli sci, go to law school. Become a lawyer, join a firm. It would be fine. I’d be good at it.”

“But you wouldn’t love it,” Steve says. “It’s not what would get you up in the morning.”

Bucky sighs.

“I know I sound spoiled,” he says. “It’s a great career path and I have easy access to it.”

“Bucky,” Steve says. “You don’t have to keep disparaging yourself. It’s good to know you’re privileged, but it’s okay to say you’re unhappy about what you have to do. Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you’re automatically happy.”

Bucky looks at Steve and it’s almost emotional.

“Thought you thought I was a spoiled, rich, brat,” he says.

“You are,” Steve smiles. “You’re all of those things and you suck for it. But you’re also more than that. You’re under pressures I couldn’t imagine. I don’t know what it’s like to have super successful parents who expect me to achieve these unreachable goals. I had one parent and she was—the easiest person you’d ever meet. She just wanted me to be myself and be happy, even if that meant I’d be poor forever. That was my choice to make, she said.”

“She sounds amazing,” Bucky says softly.

“She was my best friend,” Steve says quietly. “She meant everything to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says and he looks it. “I’m so sorry, Steve.”

Steve’s throat catches and he shakes his head and smiles. It still hurts to remember her, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. He spends his days remembering her, his nights. He could sketch the shape of her face with both eyes closed.

“My parents want me to be happy too,” Bucky says quietly. He takes a mouthful of hot chocolate. “I know they do. It’s just—”

“What they think will make you happy and what will are two different things,” Steve says and Bucky nods.

“I can’t break their hearts,” he says. “I won’t let myself.”

There’s a goodness in Bucky Barnes that Steve had missed all those months ago. He had looked at him and seen opulence and extravagance and irresponsibility. The person he’s come to know is the opposite of all of that. He’s excited and kind and genuinely so, very good.

Steve wishes he could kiss him.

“You won’t,” he says and squeezes Bucky’s shoulder instead. “You’ll figure out a way to tell them and it’ll be okay.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says after a moment. “I hope so.”

Steve gives him a moment to collect himself and then squeezes his shoulder again.

“But first, finals.”

  
They spend the next few hours working in spurts and lounging in spurts. Steve works on his color theory paper and Bucky continues working on his politics and the media one. Steve gives up on analyzing the warmth of red or whatever and starts to work on his politics paper too.

Bucky is on the couch with his laptop and Steve is sprawled across the floor with his.

Then they switch positions, with Bucky on the floor and Steve on the couch.

They share ideas. They argue about politics.

“Should we get high?” Bucky asks at some point, exhausted and staring at the ceiling.

“No,” Steve says emphatically. “But I could go for some Chinese food.”

“Oh shit, order me 12 crab rangoons!” Bucky says eagerly.

Steve does not.

He does, however, order four crab rangoons, two hot and sour soups with extra wonton strips, two egg rolls, an order of beef and broccoli, an order of chicken lo mein, an order of beef lo mein, and an extra large sized order of General Tso’s chicken.

“No shrimp,” Steve says when Bucky suggests garlic shrimp. “Shellfish allergy. I’ll balloon up like a lobster and die in your arms.”

“I can’t be held responsible for that,” Bucky says. “I have too much to do.”

The food gets delivered in under an hour which is great because Steve and Bucky are going stir crazy by then. It’s 1 am and they’re starving.

They survey their spoils.

“This is disgusting,” Steve says.

“Yup,” Bucky says. “But worth it.”

“Yup,” Steve says.

They steadily work their way through their veritable mountain of Chinese food and by the end, Steve’s done with his paper and Bucky’s three fourths of the way through his.

The problem is they’re so full they’re gonna die and also, as a result, so sleepy they’re gonna die.

“A small nap,” Bucky suggests and Steve could not agree more.

They carefully put the Chinese cartons in the fridge and shut their laptops just like, temporarily.

“Couch?” Bucky and and Steve’s too exhausted to grab pillows or blankets for them.

“My bed’s big enough,” Steve says, sleepy and grumpy. 

Bucky could raise his eyebrow, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he follows Steve into his bedroom and crawls into bed after him.

“Just a nap,” Steve murmurs, already half asleep.

“A quick one,” Bucky agrees, scooting closer to him. “Like a cat.”

They fall asleep like that, not for a nap or a cat nap, but a real sleep, for hours, until they wake up and it’s noon and the sun is streaming in through the window on a cold, bright December day and they have to pretend they didn’t wake up wrapped around each other.

Steve stares at Bucky, all glowing and sleep-rumpled and feels his chest warm against his will. He makes them coffee and they start again.

  
They survive finals as best as they can, with too little sleep and too much coffee. Everyone’s ready to leave for home on different days throughout finals period, which makes it difficult for anyone to see anyone and for anyone to say goodbye. It’s only a month, but in college, that can feel like a lifetime.

Steve doesn’t have a home to go to, but Sam invites him to stay at his family’s for Christmas. This, Steve does accept, but in the meantime he’s staying in his small shared apartment, decorated for the holidays and watching all of his favorite Christmas movies alone. He doesn’t mind, per se, but he expects it to get lonely and he expects to feel melancholy. If Thanksgiving is tough for him without his mother, Christmas is nearly impossible.

He’s grateful to have Sam and Mrs. Wilson treats him like she’s Molly Weasley and he’s Harry Potter himself.

So Steve watches Sam finish his finals and then Peggy and even Natasha, who he has a fast burgeoning friendship with. Clint finishes after all of them and Bucky, somewhere in the middle, writes his last paper.

The group of them have one night to kill so, of course, Tony Stark hosts a party.

Steve doesn’t want to go, as a rule, but also because the last time he went to a frat party, he had been left alone and nearly humiliated. He doesn’t care to repeat the experience and especially not now that so many frat bros inexplicably know his name.

He’s dragged to the party anyway and he’s wearing a red sweater that’s probably too bright for him, but that’s the warmest thing he owns. The temperature’s dropped over the last of the week and he’s been battling a slightly uneasy feeling, like his body is ready for its yearly round of influenza, but his white blood cells won’t let them win just yet.

Sam gets them all a round of drinks, while Bucky disappears with Tony somewhere to do something, Steve doesn’t know and Steve certainly doesn’t care.

That leaves him with Peggy, who looks relaxed and happy after a stressful two weeks of tests and papers. She’s in a sweater too, a lovely olive that brings out the flush in her cheeks and the bright color in her eyes. Her curls hang loosely about her shoulders and her mouth is painted red. As always, Peggy Carter is the shining star in any room and Steve feels a pull to her that he can never quite swallow.

“It has been quite the semester hasn’t it, Steve?” she asks. They stand against a wall in between what seems to be the kitchen area and the living room area. She has her sole against the wall behind her, her knee bent out. There’s a stray curl brushing her cheek.

“I can’t really remember much of it,” Steve says truthfully. “We started it five years ago.”

Peggy laughs at that.

“Did your finals go well?”

“They went,” Steve says. “Don’t know about well. What about yours?”

“I am fairly certain derivative calculus should not be offered as a class, but I am also certain I did it to myself,” she says.

“You’re too smart for your own good, Pegs,” Steve says and Peggy smiles.

She looks quiet and happy tonight, all soft lines and ease. Steve has always wanted her so badly, he nearly aches with it. He doesn’t think it’s any different tonight. It’s still there, that hazy memory and the taste of her mouth on his.

But people like Steve Rogers don’t get people like Peggy Carter.

They remain friends with them and are grateful for that opportunity.

“Do you have any goals for the New Year, Steve?” Peggy asks after they’ve both been quiet for a while.

“I don’t know,” Steve says. “To finish something I love, I guess. Try new things. Try not to catch the flu or pneumonia.”

“Why not both?” Peggy asks with a half-smile.

“Let’s not get crazy,” Steve mutters. “It’s a goal, not a miracle.”

Peggy laughs in response and the sound fills Steve up with warmth. She turns to look at him.

“What new things would you like to try?”

“Skydiving,” Steve says, thinking of things. “Extra spicy wings. Leaving the country. Kissing someone in the rain.”

“Kissing someone in the rain?” Peggy asks, eyebrow raised.

“You know,” Steve says and nudges her shoulder. “In all of those teen movies. There’s always a scene where they kiss in the rain. It never makes any sense, but it seems...dramatic. Fun. Maybe it’s silly, but something like that. I want to do something just because I feel like it and not because it’s smart or because it’s the only choice available.”

Peggy hums in assent. She seems to take some time to think about that. In the meantime, the party goes on around them. Tony Stark is in the corner with the keg, along with his best friend, Rhodey, and a giant blond who could only be Thor. A tall blond that Steve is pretty sure named Fandral is starting a Mario Kart competition on the couch. Natasha and Clint are mixing drinks and laughing while doing so. Some guy with close-cropped brown hair is trying to dance with some girl and making an ass of himself in the process. Steve frowns at him and, for some reason, the guy looks up at that very moment, looks up at Steve, sees him watching, and flashes him a grin that can only be described as menacing.

“Who’s that?” Steve asks with a frown.

“Ah,” a voice suddenly says over their shoulder. “That would be Brock Rumlow. Here you go, sorry for the wait, apparently two dumbasses are tryna play bartender over there.”

Sam gives them both their drinks, which they thank him for.

“Yeah, he’s on the soccer team,” Sam says. “Decent defender, but total asshole. He thinks people don’t see through him, but the only reason anyone tolerates him is because he’s rich.”

“Ugh,” Steve says darkly and Peggy agrees.

“Excuse me, is that Jessica Jones?” Sam says suddenly and Steve spots his classmate, all black hair and black jacket and dark expression on her face. She takes someone’s red solo cup and drains it all in one gulp. “Man, she is hot.”

“What happened to Claire?” Peggy asks.

“We’re not exclusive,” Sam says with a shrug.

“She’s terrifying,” Steve says, looking warily at Jessica Jones.

“She is as likely to kill you as date you, Sam,” Peggy adds.

“Also she might be dating her best friend,” Steve says. “Some blonde named Trish. I mean I don’t know, but I suspect.”

“Suspecting don’t mean nothin’ to old Sam,” Sam says with a smirk. “All right, excuse me, thank you.”

Sam winds his way back through the room, now nearly bursting at the seams with quickly drunkening college bodies.

“I think he has the right idea,” Peggy says.

“We should try to hook up with someone probably in love with their best friend?” Steve asks.

Peggy just gives him a smile.

Steve takes a long drink of his beer and maybe it’s the heat of the bodies or maybe it’s the end of finals or maybe he’s just a lightweight, but it makes him reach across, brush the curl off of Peggy’s face.

“Peggy,” he says, taking a deep breath.

Peggy looks at him, her eyes perfectly still, just like the rest of her.

He cups her face. _Do you remember?_ He wants to ask her. Am I the only one who cared about that night?  
  
She parts her lip and he can taste it again, her lipstick, the mint of her mouth. He wants to lean forward, wants so badly to close that distance between them.

He almost does it. Almost gathers that courage.

But then, out of nowhere, a large body stumbles into him. Steve goes crashing sideways and then Brock Rumlow has his hand around Steve’s arm and he drags him back up.

“Sorry, hey man--sorry,” he says. “You’re Rogers, right? You okay?”

Steve tries to pull himself away, wincing at the knock he got on his elbow from crashing into the wall. That’ll definitely bruise.

“I’m fine,” he mutters.

“Just lost my balance there is all,” Brock says. “I’m really sorry.”

Steve knows Brock is an asshole, so he’s not exactly inclined to speak to him. Also because his poor control of basic bodily functions was timed so poorly that it occurred at exactly the moment Steve had gathered the courage to kiss the girl of his dreams.

“It’s okay,” Steve says.

“I’m Brock,” Rumlow says and offers his hand. “Brock Rumlow. On the soccer team with Sam and Bucky. You’re friends with them right?”

“Uh huh.”

“Nice one,” Rumlow says, nodding at him. “Yeah, I’ve seen you around. Your environmental table is pretty cool.”

“Thanks.”

“I like that you care about the Earth,” Rumlow says. “More people should.”

Steve doesn’t really understand what about his monosyllabacy has encouraged Brock Rumlow to speak with him, but the other boy doesn’t seem capable of stopping. God, maybe Steve’s the actual asshole here.

“Yeah,” he says with effort. “We only have one planet, we should care about it. 

“I agree,” Rumlow says. “No, like I really do. Don’t get me started on those climate change is fake guys. The evidence is _everywhere_.”

Despite himself, this has Steve intrigued.

“I really don’t understand how people ignore science,” he says. “I mean it’s indisputable. Look at our seasons, right? Do you remember Winter lasting until _May_ when you were a kid?”

“No, man!” Rumlow exclaims. “That’s what I’m saying!”

“And the ice caps are melting, animals are dying, like—did you see the picture of the poor polar bears?” Steve leans forward a little, his passion for the subject temporarily halting any suspicions he had that Rumlow is fucking with him.

“No,” Rumlow says. “Wait, show me.”

Steve gets his phone out and so does Rumlow.

“Hey, actually, what’s your number?” Rumlow asks. “I want to know what the Environmental Club is up to.”

“It’s the Environmental Justice Club,” Steve corrects and gives Rumlow his number while he’s pulling up the pictures of the evacuated, sweating polar bears. The picture breaks his heart. He’s devastated and happy to share it.

“Right, yeah, EJC,” Rumlow nods. “I’ve seen the banners. They’re so fucking cool.”

“Yeah?” Steve smiles, pleased. “I made them.”

“Shit, seriously?” Rumlow looks impressed. “They’re fucking awesome. Wait, what the fuck. These pictures are awful.”

“They’re starved,” Steve says sadly. “We’re fucking with the planet and starving innocent animals in the process. I can’t stand it.”

Rumlow makes a sound a little like disgust.

“Humans are fucking awful,” he says and runs a hand through his hair. “I wish I could do something--wait. Hey, think I can volunteer with you sometime?”

This makes Steve pause. He stares at him.

“You want to...table with me?”

“Yeah!” Rumlow says with a grin. “Wait, fuck yeah. It’s for a good cause. For the polar bears.”

“I--” Steve isn’t sure how to answer that. He tends to distrust most people who say they want to join EJC, but Brock actually seems genuine about his interest.

Luckily, Peggy chooses now to cuts in.

“He will get you some pamphlets,” she says to Rumlow. “I’m terribly sorry, may I borrow Steve for a moment?”

Rumlow nods. “All right, good meeting you, man. Text me next time you’re out tabling!”

Peggy nearly drags Steve away from where Rumlow had ruined their moment.

“I cannot _stand_ him,” she splutters. “That sanctimonious, fake little _twat_.”

“What?” Steve blinks.

“I have never met anyone so obvious in my _entire_ life,” she says.

“He wasn’t that bad, Peggy,” Steve says, uncomfortably. “Maybe we judged him wrong.”

“Don’t you dare fall for that, Steve Rogers,” Peggy rounds on him. “Just because he asked you about your club and complimented your table!”

Steve flushes.

“It’s not just because of that!” he says, embarrassed and growing angry. “You don’t think people can just _like_ what I do?”

“That’s not what I said,” Peggy snaps.

“I’m not the biggest loser on campus, Peggy,” Steve says. His cheeks are growing hot, his temper rising. “People _can_ appreciate the things I do and want to be a part of it. It doesn’t have to be because they have some sort of—ulterior motive.”

“He is a _bully_ , Steve,” Peggy argues. “He was playing you!”

“For _what_? What could he possibly gain from tricking me by selling baked goods at a table?” Steve’s eyes flash.

“Who knows? It could be a frat prank. _Hazing_.”

“ _I’m not in a frat_ ,” Steve seethes. “ _And_ I’m not an idiot! He was being perfectly nice.”

“Oh what would you know about what?” Peggy says sharply. “Bucky has been nothing but kind to you all semester and you still complain to me about him.”

That really does make Steve flush, all heated and angry and slightly mortified. It’s like a slap in the face, although he’s not sure why. He hadn’t realized that he talked about Bucky quite so much. Certainly not enough for _Peggy_ to remember.

“I’m sorry I’m not as _charming_ as you or Sam, Peggy,” Steve says and his voice comes out lower than he means for it to. “I do the best I can.”

Something about Steve, pulled small and tight, like a hurt cat, must trigger something in Peggy, because she immediately softens.

“Oh, Steve,” she says. “That isn’t what I meant at all.”

“I’m not under any impression that I’m easy or even pleasant to be around,” Steve says, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice. “I know Bucky’s perfect and I’m, well, _me_.”

Peggy looks stricken.

“Steve, no. That isn’t what I meant. You know i don’t think that. I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“I’m tired of this,” Steve says. He scrubs his hands over his face. “I’m tired of, god, of all of this.”

“Steve, please--” Peggy tries to apologize again, but Steve’s had enough.

He’s tired and sad and humiliated and he hadn’t want to come to this stupid party in the first place, a place he knew he was never going to feel like anything less than a freak, sticking out like an unwanted, socially awkward, sore thumb. He had wanted to go home, to his couch, to curl up under his warm blanket with a book, not trek out in the cold to a party where he only knew a few people and where Tony Stark was happily leading a group of idiots in fucking _battle bots_ or some shit.

Steve hates it here. He hates that these people are the way they are and he hates that he’s the way he is and he hates that someone said one kind thing to him and he had believed him and Peggy had seen him and immediately determined how lonely and pathetic he was.

How he pushes everyone away, but what he really wants is to be accepted. To be liked. To have family of some kind.

All he had wanted was to have a night off from his thoughts and maybe, just maybe, to kiss Peggy again to see if it had meant anything at all.

God, he hates it here.

Steve pushes through the crowd, ignoring Peggy’s pleas, and is almost to the door, when a hand closes around his shoulder.

“Steve?” a familiar voice asks, but Steve shakes his head.

“I’m gonna go,” he says. “Let me go, Buck.”

“But you just got here,” Bucky says. He sounds worried. “Steve, is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Steve says, voice angry and tight. “Everything’s just great, Bucky, everything couldn’t possibly be better, I’m fine, I’m always _fine_ \--”

Steve isn’t going to cry, because he doesn’t cry, but he does feel himself seize up, his throat aching, his chest tight and burning. He doesn’t know why he’s reacting like this. He doesn’t know why Peggy’s bad opinion makes him want to fall apart.

He feels so _stupid_.

“Steve, no,” Bucky says, softly. “Come on. Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”

“Just go back to the party, Bucky, I’m _fine_ ,” Steve tries to sound as mean as possible, but just sounds miserable instead.

“The party sucks anyway,” Bucky says firmly. “Tony’s wasted and someone threw up in the hallway. Let’s go.”

Steve tries to refuse, but Bucky won’t let him. He calls to someone over his shoulder and then he puts an around around Steve’s shoulder and leads him out the door.

  
“Let’s go for a walk, okay?” Bucky says, as though they haven’t already been walking.

They’ve been walking in silence for nearly ten minutes, Steve stewing and Bucky graciously letting him. Steve is a cocktail of feelings now, and not just a few of them are some degree of mortification.

He had overreacted so badly. Peggy hadn’t even really said anything to him and neither had Rumlow. No one had, really. But the internal running commentary in his head had and what it had said was--you’re an idiot. No one likes you. No one could possibly like you. Peggy doesn’t want you. You’re alone.

And it’s maybe unkind, but it’s some of the same commentary that’s been running in his head since he was the sick kid in school, the skinny one, the weird one who was always dramatically dying. No one had cared enough to be there for him when he was growing up, no one other than his mother, and now she was gone, and he was certain, so very certain, that one of these days, his friends would realize he wasn’t worth it and then they’d leave him too. All he had was his art and he couldn’t even fucking do _that_ right.

God, his head is a fucking mess.

“When I have a panic attack, I like to say every word I know in Elvish, one at a time,” Bucky says into the night air. “It’s super silly, but it helps calm me down. It’s something that I love and something that’s not normal. It doesn’t just come to me, I have to think about it. The act of thinking about it sometimes distracts me from the fact that I feel like my chest and head are going to explode.”

Steve tries to reign in his pathetic, depressed thoughts.

“You have panic attacks?” he asks.

“I have anxiety,” Bucky says in response. “Debilitating, sometimes. Since I was a kid. I can manage better now that I’m older and have taken, like, extreme amounts of therapy, but you can’t stop a panic attack when it starts. And you never know when it’ll start.”

“I didn’t know,” Steve says.

“Most people don’t,” Bucky shrugs. “I don’t go around advertising it.”

Steve swallows. He can understand that.

“What about?” he looks at him after a moment.

Bucky gives him a half smile.

“Oh, who knows? Everything and anything. School, sports, my social standing. Becca. My dad. Law school. My dad mentioned the LSAT or something over the summer and I stopped breathing at the dinner table.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says and means it. “What happened?”

“My baby sister saw,” Bucky says with a real smile. “She’s an expert in Bucky Barnes now. Says she saw me turn purple and just jumped into savior mode. She distracted my dad from the conversation and pulled me into the other room under some pretense or other. I can’t really remember since I was hyperventilating at the time.”

“That must be nice,” Steve says after a minute. “To have someone like that.”

Bucky looks at him then, with an expression that says he understands only too well what’s happening in Steve’s unrelenting head.

“You know what chosen family is, Steve?”

Steve raises an eyebrow.

“Family you choose?”

“Yeah, dumbass. Exactly.” Bucky stretches his arms above his head. His coat makes a soft sound against his ear. “I know you don’t care for my frat brothers and you know, that’s fine. But they’re my chosen family. Nat’s my chosen family. We didn’t grow up together, but we’re growing up together. Isn’t that what college is about?”

“Thought college was about getting a career,” Steve says flatly.

“Yeah, sure, that too,” Bucky nods. “But it’s also about finding yourself and growing up in ways you need to grow up. And if you find a group of people to do that with—that’s your chosen family. People who have your back, who you can trust to have it. They’re not your blood brothers, but they’re your brothers all the same.”

Steve thinks of Sam then, his ceaseless faith, his unwavering loyalty. How he packs protein bars into Steve’s backpack and always asks about his classes and his art and has never, not once, failed to invite Steve to a party or an event he’s been invited to.

Steve looks down at his boots and feels wretched.

He loves Sam, would die for him. He’s been taking him for granted this entire time.

“We’re here for you,” Bucky says and squeezes Steve’s shoulder. “You gotta trust us to be.”

Steve nods, his heart rate slowly calming down. They walk on farther, cut through the quad under the cold, December sky.

“Hey,” Bucky says. “You and Peggy, are you—?”

Steve gives a short snort of laughter.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I wish I did.”

Bucky nods at that, says nothing else and for his part, Steve doesn’t offer anything more. He can’t think about that, not now.

The winds blows through, cuts Steve cold to the bone. He shivers, feels, again, the inevitable flu percolate in his veins.

“You ever think about cutting your hair?” Bucky asks suddenly.

“What?” Steve says. He frowns, trying to track this change in conversation. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

Almost as though he has nature answering for him, another gust of wind blows through and an obscene amount of blond flops into Steve’s eyes.

“Oh, nothing,” Bucky laughs. Then, reaching forward, he ruffles Steve’s hair, messes it up even more.

“Hey!” Steve squeaks. He grumbles and pats down his hair.

That makes Bucky smile and for some reason, maybe because it’s cold or because he’s restless or just because of who he is as a person, he spreads his arms and literally spins. It’s not even snowing. He’s just spinning and being ridiculous.

Steve stares at him.

“You know how you’re always mad about stuff on campus? And like, the world?” Bucky asks, apropos nothing.

“Yeah,” Steve says warily. He watches Bucky closely, his eyes tracing the other boy’s movement.

“Have you ever considered running for student body president?”

Steve blinks.

“What?” he gawks.

“Just something I’ve been thinking about,” Bucky says with a shrug. “Tired of Tony running his mouth about it. He doesn’t care about the school, he cares about being Tony Stark. I like him, don’t get me wrong, but we deserve someone better.”

“No one’s gonna vote for me, Buck,” Steve says seriously.

“Are you kidding me? Everyone already knows you on campus,” Bucky says. “You’re always protesting something and there was that time last year you painted graffiti on the side of the Dean’s office to bring attention to—”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Steve says with a grin.

“—pandas? Baby pandas?” Bucky grins too and Steve flips him off.

“The school’s investment in the prison industrial complex, you ass,” Steve says.

“Yeah, baby pandas, like I said,” Bucky grins wider. “Not everyone loved it, but everyone _knew_ about it. I don’t know, the world is ending and people are restless. I think you could be what they’re looking for.”

Steve raises an eyebrow.

“You sounds like an infomercial. Why don’t you run?”

“Another rich kid? Son of a senator? Pass,” Bucky drawls. “Besides, I still have the soccer team.”

“I don’t know,” Steve says dubiously. He sticks his hands in his pockets and tries not to shiver from the cold. “I’ve never thought about it before. Where would I start? I don’t know how to run a campaign.”

“Well,” Bucky says, his voice suddenly amused, “Wonder if you know someone who does.”

Steve looks at him.

“Are you...offering to run my campaign?”

“Yeah, you punk,” Bucky snorts. “I want to be the head of good hair behind the man.”  
  
Steve rolls his eyes and bumps Bucky’s shoulder.

“What’s with you and hair?”

“Have you seen mine?” Bucky asks seriously. He stops Steve and turns him to face him. “Seriously. Have you seen it? _Look at it._ ”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve can’t help but laughing. Loathe as he is to admit it, he remembers running his fingers through impossibly soft brown strands. He almost does it again, but narrowly avoids the urge.

“I’m like 90% amazing hair and 10% caffeine on any given day,” Bucky says.

Steve rolls his eyes again.

“You’re stupid.”

“Yeah, stupidly good looking,” Bucky grins and Steve groans out loud.

Bucky Barnes is, without a doubt, the most ridiculous creature he’s ever met.

“Will you think about it?” Bucky asks after a moment.

Steve doesn’t know. Running for school office, drawing attention to himself like that—it’s not something he’s ever thought of. He’s not even sure he wants it. But he has all of this restless energy and he feels displaced all the time and he _does_ care about others, he does have ideas that would help make school a better place. He wants to be a part of a community and this could be his community.

“Maybe,” he says, noncommittally. Then, wryly, “But in my first act as President, I’m gonna de-fund the entire Greek system.”

That makes Bucky laugh out loud, an appreciative laugh that comes deep from his stomach and then, suddenly, he takes off his scarf. Before Steve can say no, he wraps it around Steve’s neck and tugs him forward.

Steve feels warm and nervous, almost excited. He can smell Bucky on the scarf, a comforting, soothing scent. He can see every strand of Bucky’s eyelashes and the small dip in his chin.

“It’s been my pleasure getting to know you this semester, Steve Rogers,” Bucky says, looking straight into Steve’s eyes.

Steve looks for some negativity there—contempt or sarcasm or just plain insincerity. He finds nothing. Bucky might actually not be capable of it.

“Oh,” Steve says, blushing. “You’re all right.”

Bucky grins.

“That’s such an improvement from the beginning of the year that I’m _thrilled_.”

“I bet you are,” Steve mutters. “Weirdo.”

They look at one another then, Bucky’s scarf around Steve’s neck, his fingers curled into Steve’s coat, Steve just inches from him. They watch each other and strangely, so very strangely, they smile.

Steve doesn’t know when and he’s not sure why, but sometime over the course of the last semester, he’s gone from hating Bucky to being skeptical of him to flat out liking him.

Peggy was right. Bucky’s never been anything but kind to him. And all Steve does is complain.

And, secretly, wonder if it would be a crime to kiss him.

“Text me over winter break?” Steve asks, almost shyly.

Bucky must take that to be one of the best news of his life, because he’s radiant in his smile. He whole face lights up. It’s almost too much for Steve to bear.

“Of course, Stevie,” Bucky says. “Wouldn’t survive the break without it.”  
  
Steve hates it, but he can’t help but smile back, warm and affectionate.  
  
Bucky doesn’t let him go too far, either. He swings an arm around Steve’s shoulder and they walk on, close together. Around them, it gently begins to snow.


	4. spring semester. (january-march)

**spring semester. (january-march)**

  
Winter break could always last longer, but Steve’s not unhappy when the campus comes back to life. He had ended up staying longer with the Wilsons than he had planned, but once Sam’s mom had realized that Steve didn’t have any plans for New Year’s, she had refused to hear another word out of Steve’s mouth.

“You are staying with us until you both go back to school and if you find that disagreeable, you can take it up with Nana,” Mrs. Wilson had said, waving a spatula full of cake batter in a vaguely threatening way at Steve on Christmas Eve.

It isn’t worth it to Steve’s life to dispute Nana Wilson, so he stays through New Year’s.

The Wilsons get Steve a polaroid camera for Christmas, which nearly makes him choke up with emotion, and which he then uses to take pictures that he can later look at and press into an album--Sam’s mother making cookies at midnight, the Christmas tree, decorated by the entire Wilson clan and Steve, the snow as it fell on Christmas day, Sam’s face as he opened Steve’s present--a signed soccer jersey from his favorite soccer player, Thierry Henry, that Steve had miraculously found at a thrift store, Sam’s sister playing the piano on Christmas Eve, the crackling of the fireplace, Sam’s Nana drunk on eggnog, and him and Sam, smiling and laughing, heavily leaning into each other on New Year’s, after drinking too much champagne and watching fireworks on Sams rooftop.

Steve spends all of break texting Bucky, so he hears it all--how Becca had tried to bring a new boyfriend to Christmas dinner, how said boyfriend had said all of the wrong things and how Becca had spent the entire night emergency texting Bucky under the table, how their mother had burned the Christmas ham because she had actually tried to cook it this year, how his father had given Bucky a gavel for Christmas, engraved with _James B. Barnes, Future Esquire_ on it, how it had given Bucky so much anxiety that he had stolen an entire bottle of whiskey from the family bar and had spent the rest of Christmas and most of the next day drunk and sick.

They talk on the phone too and Steve sends Bucky pictures of the polaroids he takes and they even manage to FaceTime, Steve becoming more and more obviously happy every time he hits _accept_ and Bucky’s face is there, waiting to talk to him.

So when he gets back to campus, he’s a little sad for winter break to be over, but he’s also ready for the spring semester and all that it will bring.

  
Apparently, what it brings is bitterly cold winds and an email Steve wasn’t expecting.

He skids to the front of Bucky’s frat house on the first day back, screws up all of his confidence, and rings the doorbell.

Amazingly, miraculously, it’s Bucky who opens the door.

His face, as usual, lights up, bright and disgustingly happy to see Steve.

“Steve!” Bucky exclaims and he looks like he’s about to wrap Steve in a hug when Steve shoves a piece of paper in his face.

“ _Bucky Barnes, what did you do?_ ”

Bucky blinks and takes the paper from Steve. It’s the print out of an email.

“Dear Mr. Rogers, you have been nominated to run for student body president,” he reads out loud. He pauses. ”Wait, you did it?”

“ _No!_ ” Steve says. “I didn’t do anything. I spent all of break drinking eggnog with Sam--”

“Oh, how is he?” Bucky asks brightly.

“Great,” Steve says. “ _Focus_. Did you do this?”

“No,” Bucky shakes his head and gives the print out back to Steve. “I swear. Someone else must have nominated you.”  
  
Steve frowns at the email.

“Who would do that?” he asks. “I don’t--no one even knows me.”

That makes Bucky laugh for some reason. Steve glares up at him.

“Steve, I don’t think you understand how known you are on campus,” Bucky says. “Look, does it matter who nominated you? We’ve talked about this. You know I think you’d be a great president.”

They had talked about it, in fact. Bucky hadn’t brought it up every time they talked over break, but he had brought it up a few times--how good Steve would be at being president, how the school _needed_ change, and how Steve had the vision to do it.

“I don’t know, Buck,” Steve sighs. He tries to run a hand through his hair and realizes he’s wearing a hat, one of those fuzzy ones with the ball at the end.

“You look so cute,” Bucky says absentmindedly.

“What?” Steve blinks at him.

“What? What were you saying?” Bucky replies quickly.

“I was saying I don’t know,” Steve says, squinting at Bucky suspiciously. Bucky gives him one of his innocent, disarming smiles, which Steve doesn’t usually fall for, but he hasn’t seen Bucky in a month, so his defenses are all down again.

Steve sighs.

“I have to get ready for my art show. I need to nail this piece--I can’t. I can’t disappoint Professor Erskine. It has the be my priority.”

“Steve,” Bucky says and he steps out into the cold January air. He’s in slippers and sweatpants and a warm sweater that has the letter J embroidered on it. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But I think you’d be really great at this. And I’ll help you. I’ll run your campaign. We won’t let it take away from your art, I promise.”

Steve hates it when Bucky promises him anything, because, the thing is--Steve usually believes him. When Bucky looks at him like this, all hopeful and trusting and open, Steve can’t help but mirror it back to him. Bucky Barnes promises. Steve knows he won’t break that promise.

Steve takes in a breath, feels a little dizzy. He pulls his scarf closer around his neck.

“You really think I could do it?” he asks quietly. “I won’t be laughed out of school?”

“Just let someone try to laugh at you,” Bucky says, suddenly fierce. “Just let them _try_.”

Steve sways on his feet and Bucky puts a hand on his shoulder.

“I promise, Stevie,” he says. “Let’s do it. Let’s do it together.”

Steve has his doubts, but he also thinks maybe Bucky is right about this. Maybe it’s time that Steve Rogers does something Steve Rogers would never do. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing, to break out of his comfort zone and trust someone to stand by him in the process.

“Okay,” Steve says. “Okay.”

“Oh my god,” Bucky says, breaking into a grin. “Oh my god!”

Steve barely has time to reply to Bucky’s enthusiasm when he finds himself wrapped in a tight, warm hug. Bucky holds him like he would his closest, dearest friend, like he’s known Steve his entire life, a person he’s hugged and held a hundred times before. Steve wraps his arms around Bucky in return.

“This is going to be awesome,” Bucky says. “I can’t wait!”

Steve probably can. But he’s currently warm and comfortable in Bucky’s arms, so the presidency, the campaign, all of that? That seems like a problem for future Steve.

* * * *

Bucky doesn’t remember when Fall semester hit him like a ton of bricks, but he’s pretty sure it waited longer than the first two weeks of school. He doesn’t know if it’s because it’s his second semester junior year or because he’s taken stupidly difficult courses or because sports are making his life a living hell, but he barely has time to catch his breath before the semester is off and racing under his feet. He has four classes he’s taking and the advanced independent research and study with Professor Danvers. He has his fraternity duties, including the internal politics of running for fraternity president. He’s in soccer practice more days than he’s not and their game schedule starts almost immediately after they get back--Bucky has one week to work with T’Challa to get everybody back into some ragged kind of shape before they travel for the weekend up to Syracuse to play an away game. In between, he manages to do his homework, ignore his father’s emails, and make some kind of a plan to work with Steve on his presidential campaign.

Bucky really doesn’t know who submitted Steve’s name into the presidential race, but the word has gotten around the frat that weird, little Steve Rogers is running and, what’s more, he might actually give Tony Stark a run for his money. Metaphorically speaking.

Steve seems like he’s disappeared into a wormhole of his own making. Whenever they text now, it’s because Bucky is up late researching in his room and Steve is still at the art studio, working on the pieces for his art show.

Sometimes, they’ll try to meet up for breakfast or for lunch, but they seem to keep missing each other. When Bucky’s at the food hall, Steve’s at the studio. When Steve remembers he needs to eat, Bucky’s at practice. When both of them have a small sliver of window free, someone ends up missing the text from the other because they’ve fallen asleep with their phone on silent.

All in all, it’s been the busiest start to a semester Bucky ever remembers and it’s been nearly two weeks since he’s seen Steve. He misses him more than he realized he would.

Finally, one weekend they have a home game that gets cancelled due to a sudden, torrential downpour. Bucky puts on a hoodie and his coat, puts his laptop and a novel in his backpack, and trudges over to Steve’s apartment.

When Steve opens the door, he’s surprised to find Bucky, soaking wet and with a sheepish smile on his face.

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky says. “I missed you. Think we can do some work together?”

Steve looks--well, he honestly looks relieved.

“Of course, Buck,” he says and opens the door. “I’ll make some hot chocolate.”  
  
  
The apartment smells like canvas and acrylic paint, even though Steve has the window open and cold air is blowing in and out, chilling the entire place. Bucky notices that he’s wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with his art smock over it, shivering at the cold, goosebumps up and down his arms.  
  
Steve turns toward the kitchen and Bucky slips his shoes off.

“Steve, it’s _freezing_ in here,” he says.

Steve shrugs.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re literally shivering, you psycho,” Bucky mutters. He deposits his stuff at the coffee table and goes to look at Steve’s art corner. “Can I look at this? Correction--I’m looking at this.”

“What?” Steve calls from the kitchen, but Bucky ignores him.

Whatever Steve is working on--Bucky doesn’t get it. He’s only half done and there’s a shape emerging from dark strokes and navy lines, a pair of blue eyes that are both kind and devastated at the same time. He doesn’t know what it is or why it is, but Bucky can tell _how_ it is, a melancholy, unsettled feeling that sits in his chest. It hurts, looking at it. It’s beautiful.

“It’s not finished yet,” Steve says quietly at his elbow.

Bucky turns to look at him. He has blue in his hair, white on his chin. His hands are stained black and purple and his smock is a palette of multicolored streaks. They’re curled around a steaming mug.

“Steve, it’s--” he can’t finish his thought, unable to express how it makes him feel.

He thinks maybe it’s how Steve feels all the time and that makes him want to stop him, put his arms around Steve’s thin little shoulders and hold him until he’s warm again.

“It’s not very good, I know,” Steve says. He looks at the piece and his eyes are sad too, closed off and distant. “I just--I couldn’t get it out of my head. It’s been driving me crazy all break. I just needed to get something down.”

Bucky takes the mug from Steve, his warm fingers brushing against Steve’s cold ones.

“What is it?” Bucky asks quietly.

“I don’t know,” Steve answers after a minute. “A person. Or a feeling, maybe.”

“Whose eyes are they?” Bucky asks, even though he thinks he knows the answer.

Steve doesn’t say anything to that. Maybe he can’t admit it out loud himself.

“It’s beautiful,” Bucky says. “I don’t know art, but this--I know this is art. I know this is _good_.”

Steve shakes his head. Then he nods, like he doesn’t know what to say or how to react. He swallows, maybe because he can’t.

“Promise me you’ll finish it,” Bucky says.

Steve looks dubious, so Bucky puts a hot chocolate-warmed hand against Steve’s cheek.

“Promise me.”

Steve looks like he wants to look away, as though he can’t bear the thought of continuing this conversation. He also looks as though it’s the only thing keeping him afloat. Bucky doesn’t know that feeling. He doesn’t know what it would be like to create something so personal, so precious, that it could be your salvation or your destruction.

It scares him, that knowing Steve Rogers makes him want to find out.

“Okay,” Steve says eventually, quietly.

“Good,” Bucky whispers back.

They stand there a minute, maybe two, Bucky’s thumb brushing Steve’s jaw, Steve leaning into him. He can feel every tremor of Steve’s body, his little shivers, and the way he’s almost swaying as he stands still. He can feel Steve’s breathing on the back of his hand, smell the paint on his skin.

God, it would be so easy, like this. Bucky likes him, so very much. He’s missed him, so very much.

Steve watches him, a hand suddenly on Bucky’s shoulder.  
  
“Bucky,” he whispers.

Bucky slides his hand into Steve’s hair and cups the back of his head, his nails scritching lightly into his scalp. He feels rather than sees the shiver run through Steve. Steve leans up then, his blue eyes wide, his breathing a little shallow.

Bucky almost does it.

He almost fucking does it.

His heart is hammering in his chest, every part of his body aching to kiss him, this angry, vibrant, beautiful boy in front of him. He wants to do it very much.

But Steve’s face, his cautious trust, jars something in Bucky, something that feels ugly and twisted and guilty.

This stupid, stupid bet.

He moves away quickly, too quickly, stomach plummeting.

“Oh, hey, I uh--fuck. I have to go. I just remembered--I--Tony said. Sorry Steve, I fucking forgot Tony needed me for a frat thing, I have to run. I’ll call you--tomorrow. I’ll call you tomorrow!”

He moves away so quickly he almost stumbles over himself.

“I--okay,” Steve blinks uncertainly.

Bucky can see the pink start to creep up his neck and it makes him panic, his thoughts in a familiar freefall—he likes Steve too much, does Steve like him? Steve is going to hate him when he finds out, does Steve hate him now? Did he embarrass him? God, he should have kissed him, but how could he have? The bet! The stupid bet!—which really _does_ make him stumble.

He manages to shove his way through the apartment to his shit, picks it all up and all but runs out of Steve’s apartment, like that isn’t fucking _obvious_. He runs down the sidewalk and gets halfway through the quad when he sinks to his knees, anxiety and panic rolling through him. He crouches by a bush, face in his hands, and lets out a tortured “ _Fuck!_ ”

He stays crouched, breathing heavily, too long, until he starts to lose feeling in his arms and legs. He’s definitely in the middle of a meltdown when his phone starts buzzing.

Blindly, he pulls it out.

“ _What_?” he hisses, distraught.

“Hey, it’s--wait. What’s wrong?” Becca says, always intuitive, the most fluent in Bucky Barnes. “Bucky?”

“I--fuck. Becks,” Bucky says and he sucks in a cold, rattling, too-emotional breath. “I fucked up, Becca. I really, really fucked up.”

He’s about to start crying, when Becca starts talking on the other end of the line.

“Bucky, talk to me,” Becca says, soothingly. “Tell me what you’ve done.”

* * * *

Steve has honestly been in a daze since the night before. He’s tried to sketch, but everything keeps coming out garbage. He tries to read and he can’t concentrate. He opened his laptop to write a paper for his art history class and wrote two sentences, neither of which included verbs. He went out once, to go for a walk, came back home, opened the door, and went out again, only to come back.

Sometime around noon, Sam gets tired of him and yells “ _Rogers, if you don’t sit your ass down, I’m gonna throw away all your damn paints!_ ”

Sam takes him out to lunch instead.

They sit at Pym’s, which is probably a bad idea because _everyone_ goes to Pym’s, but Sam said Steve looked like he could use a good slice of pizza and, well, he wasn’t technically wrong.

“Sam,” Steve turns to his best friend after a slice of plain cheese pizza has warmed him up from inside. “Am I kissable?”

Sam chokes on his slice of pepperoni.

“Crazy white boy say _what?_ ”

Steve makes a face.

“Am I kissable? Would you...kiss me?”

Sam stares at Steve like he’s turned into an alien, which, to be fair, is probably deserved.

“Is this your way of coming on to me, because I need a few more drinks in me before I can think about kissing my best friend.”

“So you need to be drunk to kiss me,” Steve says, latching onto, of course, the thing Sam hadn’t meant at all.

Sam hits Steve upside the head for his efforts.

“Don’t be stupid, stupid,” he says. “To the right person, you’re probably very kissable. I’m just not the right person. It’d be like kissing my very pale brother.”

That doesn’t really satisfy Steve, so he takes another bite of pizza with a sigh.

“Someone—almost kissed me yesterday,” he says. “I think. But then he—they left. Abruptly. Like, literally ran out of our apartment.”

“Damn, Rogers, who are you bringing back to the apartment?” Sam asks, clapping Steve on the back. Steve rolls his eyes.

“Someone,” he says. “Who doesn’t want to kiss me, clearly.”

“Maybe they weren’t ready for it,” Sam says. “Or maybe there’s something holding them back. Or maybe you should just _ask Barnes_.”

Steve blanches at that, nearly flailing.

“Why would you—it’s not—he’s not!”

“Man, I’m not _stupid_ ,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “I have two whole eyeballs and a wholeass brain. You two are playing the most annoying game of chicken I’ve ever seen.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve mumbles. “We’re just friends.”

“Yeah, friends who want to bone,” Sam snorts. Steve makes some kind of pathetic mewling noise, because Sam backs off with a sigh of his own. “Steve, you can’t just pretend to read someone’s mind. You go all fifty shades of bad scenarios in your head when the answer is usually much simpler than that. You like Barnes and anyone with two whole eyeballs can see that Barnes is crazy about you. Ask him.”

Steve rubs a hand over his face. He hates being wrong and, more importantly, he hates when Sam is right. He doesn’t know if Bucky is _crazy_ about him, but he does know that something—there was something there. Steve felt it. He doesn’t think it was in his head.

But then, he hadn’t thought it was in his head with Peggy either and see how that had turned out.

He sighs and picks at his pizza, glumly.

“There’s no way someone like that would want to be with someone like me,” Steve says. “This isn’t a rom com.”

“Any person would be lucky to have you Steve,” Sam says seriously. “I mean it. I wish you’d be kinder to yourself.”

Steve doesn’t know how to do that. He’s been alone for so long he doesn’t know how to show himself the love and kindness he reserves for others. Maybe Sam’s right and maybe Sam’s wrong. Steve doesn’t know how to find out one way or another.

“Talk to him,” Sam says, slurping his large Cherry Coke. “The worst he can do is say no. And anyway, isn’t he running your campaign? You can’t avoid him forever.”

Show’s how much you know, Steve thinks at Sam, defiant and bitter.

He finishes his slice of pizza with a vengeance.

  
Turns out, Sam knows a whole lot because Bucky texts him early on Sunday.  
  


> **Bucky Barnes:** meet @ the frat -- campaign HQ!

  
Steve walks into enemy territory for the second time in a month, which hurts him on a fundamental, principled level. He rings the doorbell and instead of Bucky answering this time, it’s Tony Stark.

“Well, well, well,” Stark says. “Look what the Barnes dragged in.”

“Hi Tony,” Steve says, as though they know each other. “Bucky told me to meet him here.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony blinks at him. “That’s what I said—did you not get what I said? I literally said look what the Barnes dragged in. Did you think I was making up names? You know that’s his last name, right?”

Steve is right on the verge of leaving when Bucky does appear right behind Tony’s shoulder.

“Stop harassing him, Jesus, Tony,” Bucky mutters and shoves Tony out of the way.

The other boy squacks in protest, but Bucky just grabs Steve by the middle of his arm and drags him through the frat house. There’s faces that Steve recognizes and many that he doesn’t, but, strangely, they all seem to know him. They all wave at him, at any rate, and most of them even say, _Hey Rogers!_

“Why does everyone know my name?” Steve mutters as Bucky drags him into his surprisingly large room.

“What? Oh, who can say?” Bucky shrugs, which is about the most unsatisfying answer possible.

“Bucky—” Steve starts and then stops, eyes wide. He looks around the room. “My god, what have you done?”

Every inch of Bucky’s room is covered in posters in red, white, and blue—posters with Steve’s face staring out at them. He’s in red, white, and blue too, like that Obama Hope poster and there’s some slogan on it— _Vote Rogers for Student Body President! He’s the Star Spangled Man With a Plan!_

“Like them?” Bucky beams at him. “I got them all made at the downtown Staples. A girl from your art class helped with the art. Uhh, Latina? Big, curly hair? Kinda inspires fear in you?”

“Bucky, why—wait, _America Chavez?_ ”

Bucky grins.

“Yeah! She was happy to do it. Said she liked your work on the pandas.”

“ _The prison industrial complex_!” Steve exclaims and then splutters red, “I don’t know anything about that!”

“Sure, sure.” Bucky spins around in his room and Steve watches him helplessly, this absurd human who is now his friend and also his campaign manager? Of a campaign he didn’t technically sign up for?

“Well? Do you like ‘em?”

Steve looks at the posters dubiously.

“They’re...very uh, patriotic? Why am I the...star spangled man?”

“Because,” a familiar, rough voice comes from behind him, “You look like you could be the All-American apple pie eating boy this campus and country needs. With a little help.”

Steve spins around just as Natasha’s closing the door behind him. She’s wearing her dancer’s leotard, tights, her red curls swept off her shoulders into a neat bun. She also has this glint in her eyes that makes Steve take two whole steps back.

“Hey, Nat,” Steve says cautiously. “Uhhh what are you doing here? Also I love apple pie. Also, what?”

“Steve Rogers,” Natasha says, smiling widely. It’s a little terrifying, like a cat cornering a mouse. Wait, is Steve the mouse? Shit.

“Bucky, your best friend is scaring me,” Steve says, backing up some more.

“Hey, it’ll be fine!” Bucky, the traitor, says cheerfully, clapping his hands on Steve’s shoulders. “Probably!”

“We’ll need the room, James,” Natasha says, her gravelly voice going lower with menace or, uh, interest.

“Good luck, Steve!” Bucky says and flees the room without any sort of explanation.

“Bucky Barnes!” Steve shouts, but Natasha closes the bedroom door before he can go after him.

“Oh no,” Natasha says. “Not even Bucky can save you now.”

Steve swallows and Natasha opens the little suitcase she’s brought with her.

* * * *

The thing is, Bucky knows what he’s doing. He knows that helping Steve win the presidency is all a part of soothing his guilty conscience, but he also knows that he really believes in Steve, that he thinks he would be the best president the campus has ever had. In the months since he’s known Steve, he’s gotten to know someone who’s more than just the mess who had tumbled onto the floor of that party so long ago. He’s gotten to know the Steve who is always brimming with creative energy, the one who fights for his friends and what’s right with every ounce of his being, the one who’s quiet and insecure, the one who’s loud and confident, the one who always smells like paint and always wears paint and makes friends everywhere he goes, even if he thinks he doesn’t. He knows the Steve Rogers who inspires unwavering loyalty in the people around him, the one who hates fiercely and loves just as fiercely. The one who draws his mother’s eyes because he misses her with every rattling breath he takes. The one who hands Bucky hot chocolate on cold nights.

So when he puts his own heart and energy into Steve’s campaign, it’s a little in guilt, but mostly in the unparalleled, absolutely certain belief that Steve Rogers is the only person for this job, that to better the campus, and the world, Bucky is willing to share this person he lo—cares so deeply about, even if he doesn’t want to.

He’s waiting in the kitchen, getting sodas out of the fridge as Natasha finishes her work, when he hears footsteps.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Bucky Barnes himself!” Rumlow’s voice comes from the other side of the fridge door. “Didn’t know you existed outside the soccer field. Or like, next to Rogers.”

He snickers and Bucky feels a spark of something in his stomach, anger or disgust.

He carefully straightens, Cokes in his hands, an easy smile plastered on his face.

“Brock,” he says. “What’s up?”

“Rumor has it you brought Rogers to your room,” Rumlow moves his eyebrows in a suggestive way that makes Bucky want to punch the daylights out of him.

“Yeah,” he says. “Campaign stuff.”

“Come on,” Rumlow says. “You can’t possibly think he’ll win. It’s nice you’re being friends with him out of pity, but—”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” Bucky nearly snaps.

Rumlow raises his eyebrow like, _come on dude._

Bucky feels his temper rising.

“Listen, Brock—” he barely gets out before another unwanted character appears behind them.

“What is it?” Tony asks. “What’s going on?”

“Just talking to Barnes about his charity case,” Rumlow laughs nastily.

“Shut up,” Tony says and elbows Rumlow. “I’m sure Rogers is perfectly….uh, charming to hang out with. He’s very...angry when he’s not...a social disaster? It’s lovely!”

Rumlow laughs harder and even Tony chuckles.

Bucky bristles.

“ _Shut up_ , Steve is—”

“Ohhh, Steve is it?” Rumlow grins. “Tell us what Steve is.”

“Hold on, I got this!” Tony says. “Steve is—a good student.”

“He’s very smart,” Rumlow snickers.

“I bet he has a _great_ personality!” Tony adds with a grin.

“Maybe he has a great d—” Rumlow starts and Bucky has _had enough_.

He slams his can of Coke down.

“Hey, _screw you_!” Bucky says, all heated. “Screw both of you, you’re dicks and you’re going to be fucking sorry when you _lose_.”

“Ohhh are we losing?” Tony leans against Rumlow. “Why are we losing again?”

“I think Barnes thinks _Rogers_ might win,” Rumlow grins. “It’s a little sad, seeing someone this desperate…”

Bucky nearly squeezes the damned Coke out of its can.

“Be nice,” Tony says, not nicely. “Remember, Rogers has a _great_ personality! People will definitely vote for that and not for the, you know, richest and most popular kid on campus. Anyway, Bucko’s a hard few months.”

“You’re right,” Rumlow says. He looks at Bucky with something like fake, condescending pity. “He needs this.”

Luckily, or unluckily, Natasha decides to call him at that very second, which saves him from acting on the knuckle sandwich he was seriously contemplating treating Rumlow to.

"Hey," Bucky grunts into the phone. "Coming up now."

Tony and Rumlow are still snickering about Steve--something about his hair, probably, or how short he is, or how he's always one inhaler short of an asthma attack.

Bucky doesn't fucking care, personally.

He puts a hand on Rumlow's chest and shoves him backwards.

"Hey--what the fu--"

"Let's get one thing straight," Bucky says, nearly seething. "Steve is worth ten of you. And when I win this bet, you're going to be sorry you said a single fucking word against him."

Bucky doesn't give Rumlow a chance to sneer again. Tony looks as though he's going to say something apologetic, or maybe sardonic--as though Tony Stark is capable of not being a monumental _dick_ for more than five seconds a day--but Bucky shoves past him.

"James?" Thor blinks at him, but he shoves past him too, not bothering to stop and apologize.

  
Bucky's so angry he must have steam boiling out of his ears. He takes the stairs up two at a time until he reaches the top landing. It's only here that he stops to catch his breath, to breathe air into his lungs just so he's not bright red with indignation and anger when he sees Steve.

He tries to shake it off, even though Tony and Rumlow's assholery is spinning around in his head. He knocks twice.

The door opens immediately, Natasha looking triumphant, as pleased as a cat with cream. That is, until she looks Bucky over once. She raises an eyebrow and he shakes his head, shoving his way in.

"Steve?" he asks, but his friend is nowhere to be found.

"Relax," Natasha says. She puts a hand on Bucky's shoulder, presses down with her thumb in a way that's become familiar and almost comfortable to him over the years. It took him at least six months to figure out it was her way of comforting him. These days, it works more often than it doesn't.

Bucky takes a shuddering breath and nods.

"James, it is my greatest pleasure and honor to present to you, the new and improved--Steve Rogers."

Natasha looks toward Bucky's closet expectantly.

Nothing happens.

She blinks.

"I _said_ the new and improved _Steve Rogers_."

Still nothing happens.

"Nat, did you shove my friend into a literal closet?" Bucky asks.

"Oh for the love of--" Natasha says before letting out a string of curses in Russia. "Steve Rogers if you make me come over there, it will not end well for you, I promise you that."

That threat must work because Steve lets out something like a groan and then, slowly, slides the closet door open.

He steps out, one foot at a time and Bucky--well, Bucky can't help but take in a little breath.

Steve has always--okay, not always, but for a while now--looked perfect. He's small and he's sensitive about that, but it suits him. Because he's so big in personality, he never _seems_ small. His clothes are always too big and he has paint, like, _everywhere_ , and his hair is too long and messy, and his glasses are too big and--god, he's an absolute mess. But there's something so hopelessly charming about him, about how very Steve Rogers he is.

But now he steps out and--Bucky swallows. Natasha is a miracle worker, although she had a miracle to begin with. Steve's hair is cut short, but not too short, just long enough to sweep across the front, which she has, and a little shorter on the sides. He's wearing black skinny jeans that actually fit and a light blue, soft t-shirt that has one of those rolled sleeves and a pocket in the front. It's half-tucked into the jeans. There's a black, leather belt and he's wearing bright red converse. Natasha's replaced his glasses with contacts. His bright blue eyes look at out Bucky, sheepish and nervous.

Natasha--Bucky's not sure what she did, but he thinks she must have put a little mascara on him? Because his eyelashes are always a mile long, but now they're like, two miles long, and his high cheekbones are dusted pink and Jesus fucking Christ, Bucky's an idiot, he's an absolute _idiot_ to think he could ask Natasha to give Steve a presidential makeover without falling in lo--like with him.

"Steve..." Bucky says, sounding as gobsmacked as he must feel.

"Is it too much?" Steve asks churlishly. He tries to sweep his hand into his hair, but Natasha makes a warning sound in her throat. He immediately puts his hand down.

"No, Steve it's--" Bucky tries to formulate a coherent sentence, but it's hard to talk when all he can hear is the way his heart is thudding in his ears. "It's perfect. You look amazing."

Steve colors almost immediately, his fair complexion staining pink as he struggles to keep from looking too pleased. It's honestly a great look on him.

"Natasha said it'll help...with the campaign and stuff," Steve mutters, almost as though he can't bear to be complimented so genuinely.

"You would have been great on the campaign no matter what," Bucky says immediately. "But this is good too. Wow, just. Your hair--"

"Oh my god," Steve stares at him. "You and my damn hair!"

"It looks good!" Bucky says. "It looks so soft! Come here so I can mess it up."

" _Don't you dare_ ," both Steve and Natasha say at the same time, leveling Bucky with a glare that could kill.

"Okay, okay!" Bucky says, holding up both of his hands. "Also for the record, I hate this."

He points between Natasha and Steve and the two of them smile in tandem. It's creepy and a sure sign that Bucky's life is going to soon become a living hell.

Steve’s smile softens and he touches his hair, gentler this time, like he can’t believe it. It’s both a little heartbreaking and the softest thing Bucky has ever seen. He tucks the memory away, to look at in the middle of the night, when he can’t sleep and can more readily admit his feelings under the cover of dark.

"Okay, listen Rogers," Bucky says, changing abruptly to business. "We have t minus two months until the election. We gotta get you ready to meet your constituents, sell your platform, participate in events that don't end with graffiti or you yelling at people about plastic."

"Hey!" Steve says. "Plastic is _killing_ our oceans, Buck."

"I know, Steve," Bucky says solemnly. "And I am very concerned about the baby pandas too, but we have to focus on a school-wide revolution first, and then we can save the rainforest."

"You...that's--none of that was right." Steve turns to Natasha. "He knows that none of that was right, right?"

Natasha simply shrugs. She removes a stack of posters from Bucky's bed and hoists herself up. She crosses her arms at her chest and watches the proceedings with interest.

"So here's what's happening--Natasha's going to take some headshots for more campaign posters and for your profile on the school website."

 

Bucky finds his stride, taking over this campaign. He's worked on his father's campaign before and while this might not be his passion, he sure is good at it. It's even fun, on a micro-level. He pulls out his iPad and starts going through the list he created a week ago when he was working on Steve's campaign materials instead of reading for Professor Danvers.

Steve blinks at him, rapidly.

"I have meetings lined up for you. You're going to make an appearance with the Band geeks first, then Debate club, then all of the Affinity groups--the Black Students Association, South Asian Students Association, Muslim Students Association, all of those," he scrolls down his page. "You're going to go to India Night next week, the women's tennis qualifiers the week after. Oh, you're going to need to start eating in the dining hall, can you do that?"

"Bucky..." Steve says. He looks like he's going to be queasy.

"You already have the environmental and hippie kids down, probably the hipster kids too, what with the way you perpetually look like you've rolled out of a Brooklyn loft--" Bucky looks up here. "Well, looked, I guess is more accurate. Anyway--"

"Bucky," Steve says. "Hey, please. Slow down. I--"

Bucky does look up this time and he notices that Steve looks, well, more than a little panicked. He looks a little green, he's swaying on his feet. He looks like he's going to have an anxiety attack.

Quickly, Bucky hands Natasha the iPad and closes the distance between them. He puts his hands on Steve's shoulders.

"Steve, listen to me," he says. "You don't have to try to make friends with anyone. You just have to show up. People will see you, they'll ask you questions about your platform and you'll answer. And if you ever get overwhelmed, you can cancel, no problem. I'll try to be there with you, or Natasha, or Sam. If it gets to be too much, we pull the breaks. It's going to be okay. Do you trust me?"

Steve doesn't look less overwhelmed, but he does take a breath and nod.

"Good," Bucky says, squeezing his shoulders. "Let me make you a president, kid."

Steve makes a disgruntled face at that.

"I'm not a kid, you ass."

Bucky grins.

"There's the grumpy Steve we all know and love."

"Yeah, put that on my campaign posters," Steve mutters.

"What was that?" Bucky asks.

"Nothing!" Steve says. "Nothing at all."

Bucky squints at him. Steve squints back. They spend a full minute squinting at one another until Natasha groans from the bed.

"Enough! Let's take pictures so I can get the hell out of dodge," she says.

She takes Steve aside and gives Bucky a dark look. "Between you and me, I don't want to still be here when he starts talking to you about campaign positions."

Bucky's so busy going through his checklist that he doesn't notice. He does manage to say, "Hey Steve!" though.

Steve looks up and is caught off guard when Bucky snaps a picture of him on his phone.

"Hey!" Steve says, disgruntled once more.

Bucky smiles, his chest warm, his heart fluttering, and saves the picture.

  
You know what they say about a good makeover, right? It’s like, one tenth the battle, or something. Okay, maybe not that, but Steve used to watch teen rom coms with his mother and every time, some geeky kid got a makeover and her life completely and utterly changed. Steve believes in more than external beauty and he’s certainly in no teenage romcom, but he has to admit that the effect of Natasha’s makeover is, well, immediate.

It starts slowly, eyes turning his way, people doing double takes. Then it gets a little louder. “ _Holy shit!_ ” Peter Parker exclaims in the middle of the library. People wolf whistle him in art studio--like actual, honest-to-god wolf whistle. Okay, it’s America and America’s sole mission in life seems to be making Steve blush, but even Loki raises an appraising eyebrow and says “You look good.”

The best (worst?) is Peggy. Peggy meets him for lunch one day, after she’s apologized profusely and he’s apologized profusely, and she just pulls her tray up short. “ _Wow, Steve_ ,” she says and her mouth honest-to-god drops open.

Steve spends the next week blushing nearly crimson, but it’s not a terrible feeling.

“Man, you always been cute,” Sam says when Steve complains about all of the attention. “But now you’re feeling yourself and so is everyone else. It’s okay to enjoy it, Steve.”

So maybe, secretly, he does enjoy it.

Maybe, secretly, he enjoys that every time Bucky sees him, his face brightens, like Steve is a fucking Christmas tree or something. Bucky can’t seem to stop touching him when they’re together--little touches, like a hand on his elbow, or leaning shoulder-to-shoulder, or looking over his shoulder, or accidentally brushing hands, or mussing up his freshly cut hair, much to Steve and Natasha’s chagrin, although more to Natasha’s than to Steve’s. Every time he does, something sparks in Steve’s belly and he has to warn himself, no Steve, you’re just _friends_ , and no Steve, he doesn’t like you like that, people like Bucky Barnes don’t _date_ people like you. But he can’t help it, not when Bucky looks at him like that, when he takes every opportunity to compliment Steve about his new wardrobe or how soft his hair is or how blue his eyes are.

Bucky is definitely just a very affectionate, open, nice guy, but Steve is only human.

Steve is also extremely busy, thanks to Bucky Barnes, Campaign Manager Extraordinaire. How Bucky has time to fit in managing Steve’s campaign trail when he has his own homework, research paper, soccer team captaincy, and fraternity duties, Steve doesn’t know, but he knows that he is personally drowning. When he isn’t at the art studio, he’s at the library or at Pym’s and in the few hours he has left to himself, Bucky has him attending different clubs or school nights or trying not to fall asleep into a bowl of cereal in the dining hall while half-heartedly reading his sociology textbook.

One day, Steve _does_ fall asleep into his cereal and Sam finds out that Steve has eaten nothing but cereal for the past three days and oh man, does he tell off Bucky.

“ _Enough_ , Barnes!” he nearly shouts at him.

They’re in the dining hall and Steve is blearily staring at his bowl of Reese’s Puffs, which, to be clear, has zero nutritional value, but Steve hasn’t seen a nutrition in, well, three days, so he can’t tell the difference anymore.

“He has to get around campus!” Bucky is trying to argue his point, but Sam isn’t having any of it.

He sticks a finger in Bucky’s chest and presses on it.

“He’s a boy, not a political machine,” Sam says. “If Steve doesn’t have a day off tomorrow and if he doesn’t eat a _real goddamn meal_ within the next 24 hours you better bet your ass I’m gonna tell coach that he can use Lang in defense next week.”

Bucky blanches at that.

“Scott is _terrible_ at soccer!” he protests. “And we have the Championship games coming up!”

“Yeah, so if you don’t want to crash out to Triskellion first round, you better fucking let my best friend be a real human for one day.”

Bucky grumbles about it, shooting Sam dark looks the entirety of breakfast--or is it lunch? Does Steve know what day it is…?--and muttering about how no one appreciates politics or his art or his help.  
  


Later, though, when it’s just the two of them, walking through the chill early spring air of campus, Bucky does take him to the side.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know I’ve been driving you hard. We’ll rest tomorrow. Tell me if I uh, get pushy.”

Steve can barely stifle a yawn.

“I-it’s fine,” he says, his eyes watering. “I’m just tired, I guess. I’m having trouble with this one piece. Erskine--I don’t know. I’m afraid to show him my work.”

“What?” Bucky really does drop his Campaign Manager façade then.

“We turned in a few pieces just to give him something to judge our progress and--I don’t know Buck,” Steve sighs. He doesn’t mean to express his insecurity or even dwell on it, but Professor Erskine’s been even more difficult to read than usual. “He just looks at my work and says _almost_ and _more_ and I don’t know what that means. I’m terrified of failing him.”

Steve pulls at the ends of his hair in frustration.

Bucky stops where he’s standing and grabs Steve by both of his shoulders.

“Steve Rogers,” he says. “You could never fail anyone.”

Steve gives him a wry smile.

“I appreciate that, but that’s not strictly true.”

“You’re biased and a bad judge of character,” Bucky says.

“Gee, thanks,” Steve snorts.

“I’m serious,” Bucky says. “Have a little faith in yourself. I have all of this faith in you. Maybe you can borrow some of that.”

Steve laughs.

“Yeah, just bottle that up for me and I’ll pour it into my next batch of paint.”

“A little confidence goes a long way, Stevie,” Bucky says, before letting him go. “I know that sounds like a rich kid line and that’s because it _is_ a rich kid line, but do you think rich people inherit the world by being capable? God no, we’re just extremely entitled and confident.”

Steve is very hard put to not roll his eyes here. On the one hand, it’s nice that Bucky can recognize and even make fun of his privilege. On the other hand, there’s something a little annoying about rich kids being tongue in cheek about their own good fortune in life.

Steve sighs. Now’s not the time to get philosophical about ethics and moral characteristics, or whatever.

“I just don’t know what he wants,” Steve says. He looks up toward the sky, all clear, pale blue. “I keep trying to figure it out and--I can’t channel that into something concrete. I feel stuck. Everything comes out ugh.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Bucky says, looking at him as they walk.

“What?”

“Far it be it for me to tell you how to art when I can barely hold a pencil, but from what I understand of art it has to come from you, right?” Bucky asks. “Maybe you should stop trying to figure out what Erskine wants and figure out what you want. Or feel.”

It’s not bad advice, as far as advice goes. But it’s not advice that gives him any sort of concrete answer. What does Steve want right now? What does he feel?

Artistically he feels--frustrated. Angry. Tired of being told what to do and what to paint and what it might mean for his future. He feels...happy every time he sees Bucky’s face and hears Bucky’s voice and sad every time he thinks about how much his mother would like him and how she’ll never get to meet him. He feels scraped thin, like too little butter over too much toast, and simultaneously too there, too present.

He doesn’t know how to put that cocktail of feeling onto the canvas.

But Bucky’s right. He has to try.

“What about you?” Steve asks. “Have you been writing?”

“What? Me?” Bucky asks, suddenly squirrelly.

“Yeah, you,” Steve says. “The person I’m looking at and talking to.”

“Whoa, weird,” Bucky says. He scratches his nose.

“Is that a no?” Steve asks. He nudges Bucky’s shoulder.

“A little,” Bucky finally admits. He says it quietly, ironically, with very little confidence.

“Yeah?” Steve smiles at him. “That’s great! How does it feel?”

“I’m so rusty,” Bucky says. They turn around a bench, go back up the sidewalk toward the other end of the quad. “My brain doesn’t make all of the weird, crazy worlds anymore. Not easily. But it--it’s felt good. Like something clicking inside me again.”

Steve warms at that, feels a weird mixture of very affectionate emotions, one of which is, strangely, pride.

“The more you write the easier it’ll all come back to you,” Steve says. “With talent like that--you just have to keep writing and writing and one day, some weird professor is gonna tell you _more!_ and _almost!_ and you’ll know.”

“That I’ve made it?”

“God, no, you’ll know how much I suffer,” Steve says with a grin.

Bucky huffs out a laugh, and then a louder one, joyous and fond. The wind rustles his hair and Steve smiles while watching him, trying to capture this indescribable feeling, this unbearable lightness of being.

He wishes he could hold Bucky’s hand.

“Really though,” Steve says. He bumps shoulders with Bucky again. Or, well, as high up on Bucky’s arm as his shoulder goes. “I want to read what you write. When you’re ready.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, pink appearing high in his cheeks. “Okay.”

  
They go around the quad, talking and laughing and teasing one another. It’s, god, it’s so easy. And comfortable. Two lives slotting perfectly against one another, like something clicking together.

When Steve gets home, he takes off his jacket and goes straight to his art corner. His head is buzzing, his chest tight and loose, all at once. He thinks he could float away on this afternoon alone.

He sets the Blue Melancholia aside for the moment. He puts out a fresh canvas and pours some paints on his art palette. He wrinkles his nose and stares at the blank, untouched white.

 _What are you feeling?_ he asks himself.

An unbearable lightness of being, he had thought earlier.

It’s not an actual feeling that he ends up choosing. It’s a color.

He takes his favorite brush, dabs it in the yellow, and starts making strokes on the canvas.

* * * *

With the College Cup coming around the corner, Bucky has every minute of his schedule accounted for. He gets up in the morning, goes to the gym for an early training session, goes to morning class, does research and homework, goes to afternoon class, goes to soccer training, takes a break to attend one or two mandatory fraternity events, and then heads back to the field to train some more. Somehow, in the middle, he manages to eat and respond to texts and make sure that Steve is on his campaign schedule.

As far as campaigning, it’s going surprisingly well. For a formerly disastrous curmudgeon, Steve has a bright smile, a quick wit, and is ridiculously warm and charming when he’s not being too self-conscious about it. It’s a side of Steve Rogers that hardly anyone has seen or gets to see, although Sam tells Bucky more than once that this is the _real_ Steve Rogers and it’s a damned shame that it’s taken everyone so goddamn long to find that out.

Steve seems self-conscious about it at first--the attention--but he warms up to it too, starts actually caring about the people around him and it shows. When he goes to India night or to a women’s volleyball game or a political club debate or a fundraiser that the fraternities are holding, people talk to him and he talks back to them. It’s strange, but Bucky barely remembers that this was all part of a bet. It seems to him that what he had said so many months ago to Steve, when they were standing, breath to breath in the snow, is what was true all along--that everyone was tired of rich boys. The world needed a change, and so did the campus.

Steve is like a breath of fresh air around here, self-effacing, acerbic, warm, but also curmudgeonly. It doesn’t escape people that despite his makeover, he still has paint absolutely everywhere, or that he works two jobs to pay his way through school, or that his best friend is Sam Wilson, most amiable guy on campus. He’s sweet and he’s down to earth and when people ask him what his platform is, he always says “I’m going to ban the frats,” which non-Greek students absolutely cheer and which Greek students think is an absolutely hilarious joke.

He does so well that Bucky can practically see the panic on Tony’s face, him and Rumlow always off whispering in corners when he’s in the frat house, and Bucky just goddamn, well, _preens_ at their fear.

People absolutely _love_ Steve-- _his_ Steve. They say hi to him on campus, come up and talk to him, ask him questions about his classes and his life and say they believe in him, they believe in a better SHIELD with him as their leader. They have people wanting to volunteer for his campaign, people wanting to follow him on social media. Steve helps the art department with a small art showcase, and more people than ever show up, just to see what he’s created.

It spread like wildfire across their small, liberal arts campus. _Steve Rogers, he’s the real thing_ , people are saying. _Steve Rogers, he’s the star-spangled man._

 _Steve Rogers, he’s all that_.

Bucky couldn’t be more gleeful or prouder or, frankly, more exhausted.

  
He’s so tired that he picks up his phone without checking the caller ID first.

“Hello?” he asks, tiredly looking over his research notes. He has to write a section about his research methods and turn it in to Professor Danvers by the end of the week, but they have soccer practice every single minute of every single day and the Second Round game of the College Cup against Boston University is this Saturday, away.

His _nerves_ have nerves. Thor had asked him if he needed some, you know, _extra_ help and Bucky had genuinely considered it. But then his brain had caught up to the rest of him. It wasn’t worth it to his life to fail a drug test during Championship season.

“James!” his father’s voice comes over the line.

 _Fuck_ , Bucky looks up from his computer in panic.

“Dad,” he says. “Hey.”

“You never have time for your dear old dad anymore,” George Barnes says.

“Sorry Dad,” Bucky says. “I’m been--really busy.”

“I know!” George says and he sounds so excited that Bucky finally feels bad.

He’s been tensed since his father answered, but he tries to relax now. This is his _father_. He only wants  what’s best for him.

“My secretary showed me how to set up a Google Alert,” George says. He’s almost jovial about it. “I set up an alert for you, for Rebecca, and for SHIELD. Your soccer season is going well. You’re through to the Second Round?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says smiling. “Triskellion was a little tricky at first, but M’Baku is hard to score around. I think we’re gonna do it, Dad. I feel really good about our games. And the team--I know I was a little hesitant about sharing the captaincy with T’Challa, but I was wrong. He’s really great, everyone loves and listens to him. So I get to lead and I get to play too.”

“Good, good!” George says. “You’re a natural leader, James. It’s going to serve you well in law school and everything after. I hear you might have political aspirations…?”

Bucky does not. Bucky absolutely, definitely does not. He tries not to acknowledge the sharp uptick in his nerves.

“I’m managing a friend’s student body president campaign,” Bucky says. “He’s going to be amazing. It’s nice running his campaign, but I don’t have time to run myself. Gotta think of the soccer team. And the frat.”

“Ah yes,” George says and Bucky can imagine him nodding his head vigorously, his mustache twitching. “You know I support fraternities. It’s good to be connected to yours. And to be the leader of it. It’s going to look good on your application.”

Bucky purses his lips and nods, not that his dad can see it. Or the look of despair threatening his face.

“Now you didn’t send me confirmation about your LSAT date, James,” George says. “You know they only offer it a few times a year. And if you’re going to have your applications ready for the next cycle, you need to be taking--well I guess the February one might be too soon. June? We can sign you up for the June LSAT.”

Bucky bites down on his knuckles to keep from screaming.

“I’ll send you the funds for it,” George says. “In the meantime--Dean Treanor loved you! He could not stop talking about how polite and thoughtful you were. If you want Georgetown, son, you’re in. It might align with your political ambitions, of course, but don’t count out Yale or Harvard or--Columbia? I know how much you love the city.”

Is Bucky’s head spinning or is it the walls? Could it possibly be both?

In all honesty he had forgotten about that miserable trip to D.C. last semester. He had met with the Dean of the law school, per his father’s instructions and request, and he had promptly found a party to go to immediately after, gotten wasted, and slept with some random law student whose face he couldn’t recall even if forced to.

 _You should tell him, you idiot_ , a voice that sounds suspiciously like Steve Rogers resounds in his head.

“I--yeah,” he says, his breathing a little erratic, his voice a little higher than normal. “I’m still thinking, Dad. I want to make the right choice.”

 _He’s going to love you no matter what_ , Steve voice chides him. _Don’t be a coward._

“Yes, of course,” George says amenably. “It’s a very important decision, it’ll set you up for the rest of your life. Remember, you’re a Harvard legacy, so if worst comes to worst, you can settle for the Crimson, ha ha ha.”

Bucky is going to throw up or he’s going to kill himself or he’s going to kill himself while throwing up. He wishes he was out on the field doing suicides again. He would even take the muscle exhaustion over this conversation.

 _How much longer are you going to drag this out, Bucky_? Mind Steve gives him that look he gets when he thinks Bucky is being particularly stupid.

Bucky ignores the hell out of him.

“Yeah, ha ha--listen Dad, I have to go, I have so much work to do and we have practice again tonight and, yeah, I’ll tell you how the next round games go,” Bucky says rapidly.

“Let me know when you get the finals son,” George says. He sounds obscenely, inordinately proud. “I’ll come down there myself.”

Yeah, because what he needs is Senator George Barnes and half of America’s law school deans sitting on the sidelines while Bucky’s trying to win a championship game.

“Of course, that’d be great,” Bucky says. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”

“Love you!” George says and the line goes dead.

“Oh _my fucking god_ ,” Bucky says, nearly shouting at the ceiling above him. “ _Fuck!_ ”

He buries his face into his hands and _screams_.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” he says over and over again and when he’s done screaming--now into his pillow--Bucky changes into shorts and a t-shirt and slams out of the frat house to go back to the track for an impromptu, but very necessary, six mile run.

* * * *

Steve’s been so busy, he hasn’t had time for his _own_ clubs. He reads an article over a sad turkey and non-dairy cheese sandwich lunch about how the planet’s going to be dead by 2040 and it sparks off guilt inside him that eats him up until he ignores four planned campaign activities to paint a banner in their living room.

It’s a large banner that says PROTECT OUR PLANET, IT’S THE ONLY ONE WE’VE GOT and under, in slightly smaller, messier font, _Ask Me About How the Trump Administration Is Killing All of Us._

He’s going to tell people about all of the ramifications of the newest Trump anti-environmental regulations, raise money to donate to EarthJustice, one of Steve’s favorite environmental advocacy groups, educate the campus on other national and local environmental initiatives, and also go off on any person stupid enough to come up to him and deny that climate change is real and also that it’s _bad_.

It’s 1 am and he’s making an entire tray of mini brownies because around 11 pm he had decided that the best way to raise funds was to have a bake sale and so he had looked through their pantry and found just enough to make three batches of chocolate chip cookies, two batches of brownies, and those cookies people made out of a box of Funfetti mix. He’s pretty sure the mix is Sam’s, so he leaves four in a container for him.

Sam gets home sometime in the middle of this frenzy, gives Steve a fucking _look_ , takes a cookie and nearly shouts, “ _Thanks, now get the fuck to sleep, Rogers!_ ”

Steve does...eventually.

  
Steve is sitting at his usual table on the brick walkway between the library and the career services building, the huge banner billowing slightly behind him, his pamphlets and baked goods on the table. He has his sketchbook open and a textbook open next to that.

He eats a protein bar and hums bars to some pop song Bucky had introduced him to that he hasn’t been able to get out of his head for a week.

He’s lazily sketching a vision of what the landscape will look like in the near post-environmental apocalyptic future when his first customer appears.

“Mr. Rogers,” comes a familiar voice and smile that makes his stomach immediately tighten with nerves. “I could see your banner all the way down to the Student Union.”

“Professor,” Steve smiles up at him, nervously. His new anxiety around Erskine is unfortunate, because he really does love him as a professor. “Good morning.”

“You’re a man of many talents,” Erskine smiles back. He gestures at Steve’s sketch pad. “May I?”

“Oh—it’s not—I was just doodling, Professor,” Steve flushes, but he hands it over all the same.

He’s only half finished with his landscape and honestly it’s pretty dire and dramatic, but so is the Earth _being destroyed_.

Erskine looks at it for a few minutes and Steve tries not to squirm. Then he hands it back with a laugh.

“It really paints a picture,” he says. “It’s very alarming. Have you considered submitting it to the Department of Environmental Protection to scare them into action?”

“Do we still have one of those?” Steve mutters darkly.

Erskine laughs again.

“Touché,” he says. “Well, I like it. It’s very different from what you’ve submitted to me, but that isn’t a bad thing. If artists only created the same things, they would be rather boring wouldn’t they?”

Steve gives him a half-smile.

“I used to draw comics when I was younger,” he says. “Some original, a lot of Captain America, uh, fanart.”

“Well he is the star spangled man,” Erskine winks and Steve straight up flushes.

“ _Professor!_ ” he splutters and Erskine’s laugh this time is loud and booming.

“Well you have my vote,” he says. “Although that might not mean anything seeing as how I can’t vote in student elections.”

Steve mutters some things under his breath, embarrassed.

“How about a brownie then? For the environment,” Erskine says.

Steve nods and hands his favorite professor a brownie in exchange for $1.

“Thank you. I’ll see you in class, Mr. Rogers,” Erskine says, eyes twinkling. “Keep up the good work.”

“Our planet deserves it,” Steve says solemnly.

Erskine smiles something warm and affectionate.

“I meant the art,” he says.

Steve blinks, watching his professor’s retreating back, and then gives in to the hot swoop of surprise and pleasure. _Oh_ , he thinks.

He’s grinning goofily to himself and texting Sam when someone else approaches.

This time it’s less welcome.

“Hey!” Brock Rumlow grins. “You were supposed to text me!”

“Hey Brock,” Steve nearly sighs. “Sorry, it was a last minute thing.”

“That’s cool, that’s cool,” Rumlow says. “You need help? I got an hour free.”

Steve wants desperately to say no, but who is he to ignore help from someone who says they want to sit at a table and talk to bored college kids about the environment for an hour?

“Sure,” he says instead. “That’d be great.”

  
Rumlow sits down with him and Steve tenses, but a few minutes later people start coming up to the table to buy cookies and brownies and ask about starving polar bears and melting ice caps and Steve is distracted from how uncomfortable the other boy makes him feel.

There's a cute girl with brown hair and brown skin wearing a lightning bolt across a blue sweater who engages Steve in a conversation about rising sea levels for about ten minutes. When she finally leaves--with a flyer and a Funfetti cookie--Steve turns to see Rumlow looking at him.

"You're surprisingly good at this," he says.

"Talking to people about the environment?" Steve raises an eyebrow.

"No," Rumlow snorts. "Just...talking to people about what you love. Getting them to care."

"Oh," Steve says. He looks down at his pamphlets. "I don't know. We all live on the one planet. We should care, right? I don't think it's...unusual."

"Yeah, of course," Rumlow says. "But people...they don't care. They can see what's happening right in front of their eyes and not give a shit. You give a shit and that makes people want to give a shit. It's--good.”

"Thanks," Steve says. He feels strangely self conscious, but in a good way. He never does what he does to get attention, but it doesn't hurt to hear that his efforts are appreciated.

"You know, Rogers," Rumlow says and he rearranges some of the pamphlets so that they look better. "I didn't know about you. When Barnes started hanging out with you. We run in different circles, you know?"

"Uh huh," Steve says.

“I was thinking who’s the guy Barnes keeps hanging out with? I’ve seen him around campus, but usually yelling at people.”

Steve’s eye twitches.

“But you’re all right,” Rumlow says grinning. “You’re different than what I thought you’d be. But in a good way.”

“Thanks?”

Rumlow claps Steve on his back.

It’s stupid, but he seems genuine.

“How’re you feeling about the election?”

Steve picks up one of his own Funfetti cookies and nibbles on the corner. He remembers himself and reaches into his pocket to pull out a dollar.

“Good, I guess,” he says. “People seem...receptive.”

“That’s an understatement,” Rumlow laughs. “People are crazy about you! There’s groups rapping about you!”

“Huh—what?”

“Stark might have the name recognition, but people know you, Rogers,” Rumlow says. “They’re learning your name. They’re _excited_ about you.”

Steve’s not entirely sure that’s a good thing, but he supposes it can’t be bad.

“Promise me something,” Rumlow says and Steve looks at him questioningly.

“Yeah?”

“Win or lose, you’ll let me buy you a drink,” Rumlow says. “I hope you win, but either way.”

Steve doesn’t think he’s supposed to accept invitations from frat bros who are objectively and subjectively The Worst. His head knows this is a bad idea, that Brock Rumlow is to be trusted as much as a scorpion, but there’s also a part of him that’s tired of being so paranoid and skeptical all the time. Maybe Rumlow really does like him. Maybe there’s nothing there other than genuine interest in friendship.

After all, he had thought the worst of Bucky and now Bucky—Steve’s stomach flips.

“Okay,” he says. “It’s a promise.”

  
Two hours later, Steve’s run out of brownies and cookies and has only had to fight with one Trump enthusiast about climate change. Mostly people have been supportive, telling him they like his banner or his pamphlets or even, strangely, his hair cut.

He’s about to pack up when someone comes and slumps down next to him at the table.

“The day I’ve had!” Bucky exclaims. He sighs dramatically and grabs one of the remaining Funfetti cookies.

“Hey!” Steve says, wrinkling his nose. “That’s a dollar. For the environment.”

“Hold your horses, pal,” Bucky grumbles. He stuffs the entire cookie in his mouth and fishes around in his pocket. Then he slaps a twenty dollar bill onto the table. _“As_ I was saying.”

“They’re a dollar, Buck,” Steve interrupts. “One dollar.”

“Listen do you want to fund environmental justice or not?” Bucky squints at him.

Steve takes the bill with no intention of giving it back.

“That’s what I _thought_ ,” Bucky says. “ _Anyway_ , as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. The day I had!”

Steve rolls his eyes and tries not to feel too affectionately about this stupid human beside him.

“Uh huh. What kinda day you had, Buck?”

“First, I go to the dining hall at 7 am. That’s early, right? You think surely they have my favorite cereal and orange juice and also many, many strips of bacon because I need it to get through this day.”

“Sure, I have had those very thoughts.”

“Exactly! But do you think they had these things, at 7 am, which is an objectively early time for breakfast?” Bucky asks, leaning closer to him.

“I’m guessing no,” Steve says.

“That’s right!” Bucky says. “No. No!”

“Oh boy,” Steve says.

“And _then_ I go to practice, having eaten _Raisin Bran_ like I’m some kinda 80 year old man with colon problems—my colons are fine Steve, thanks for asking—and it turns out I left my uniform at home? What the fuck. So then I have to borrow clothes from _Wilson_ which means I have to promise him something, which is my worst nightmare,” Bucky barrels on.

“You and Sam are really weird,” Steve comments.

“Thank you,” Bucky says. “I miss every shot I take at practice so I get _chewed out_ by the fuckin’ coach. Which okay, like, I get it that’s Fury’s job, but the man has one eye and when he’s mad it’s _terrifying_. Anyway, then I go to my favorite smoothie place after for a consolatory smoothie and they _only_ have kale.”

“What’s wrong with kale?” Steve asks.

“Do I look like a fucking rabbit, Steve?” Bucky squints.

“Do rabbits eat kale, Bucky?” Steve says.

“How should I know, Steve?” Bucky replies. “Anyway, so I have to drink some smoothie I hate and then I go to class and I’ve left my books at home _obviously_ and then Becca calls me and says she’s dating some new guy and he’s from _Long Island_ and then, I get this.”

Steve blinks at him, this...creature who is so fucking _ridiculous_ that Steve often finds himself lacking the words to describe him as _anything else_.

Bucky flourishes his arm out, a phone in his hand.

Steve raises an eyebrow and takes the phone to read the screen.  
  


> **THE PAN-HELLENIC COUNCIL PRESENTS A FUNDRAISING EVENT:**
> 
> **KISS LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT**

  
“What does this mean?” Steve asks warily.

“It’s a kissing booth, Steve,” Bucky says solemnly. “They’re setting up a _kissing booth_ to raise money.”

“Raise money for _what?_ ”

“A variety of causes,” Bucky sighs. “They do some kinda event every year to raise money for different charities and clubs, causes, things like that. Last year we had a spaghetti night. I guess this year they want me to kiss half the student body.” 

Steve tries not to imagine or flush at that.

“Why are you doing this again?”

“ _Because_ , Stevie!” Bucky says and dramatically collapses on Steve’s shoulder. “I’m running for president of my frat. And I’m co-captain of my soccer team. Also, look at me.”

“I am, you got a little something on your chin.”

“What?” Bucky asks, blinking rapidly.

“Right there,” Steve says and moves closer. It’s meant to be teasing, but Bucky’s already on his shoulder and his mouth right _there_ , and for a wild second Steve misjudges all of it.

He looks down at Bucky’s mouth and Bucky’s eyes widen, the slightest bit. It wouldn’t be difficult at all, to tilt his head forward, act on this silly, stupid, completely unrealistic crush. For a second, just that one second, Steve’s eyes widen too, thinking he might do it, holy shit, he might actually do it, his heart nearly pounding out of his chest.

He pulls himself together at the last second and brushes some crumbs off of Bucky’s chin with his thumb instead. Bucky turns pink.

“Oh,” Bucky swallows. “Thanks.”

He moves away quickly, too quickly, and Steve clears his throat.

“Can anyone join?” Steve asks.

“What?”

“Like if I’m not in a frat. But I want to join on behalf of the Environmental Justice Club. Could I choose to donate my funds to an environmental charity of my choice?”

Bucky stares at him for a second, mouth askew.

“Uh, I guess?”

“Ask for me?” Steve says and hands Bucky back his phone. “I want to help.”

“You’re going to...kiss people?” Bucky asks.

“I guess,” Steve says.

“As a part of a Greek event?” Bucky says slowly.

Steve shrugs.

Bucky stares at Steve, as though he’s trying to figure out what his ulterior motive is or what foreign language he’s suddenly started speaking. In all fairness, it does seem like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Steve Rogers participating in a Pan-Hellenic event where he extorts money for kisses. What most people don’t understand is that Steve loves the planet and would do anything to help save it.

And if he has to be in a booth next to Bucky Barnes kissing other people, just so he doesn’t have to watch other people kiss Bucky Barnes, well, so be it.

“What if I want a kiss from you?” Bucky suddenly asks.

“Yeah right,” Steve snorts.

“What?” Bucky challenges, boldly. “What if _I_ want to save the planet by getting a kiss from Steve Rogers?”

Steve rolls his eyes and tries not to think too hard about it, Bucky teasing him. Bucky flirting with him. Certainly not Bucky Barnes wanting to kiss him.

“Then I guess, Bucky Barnes,” he says. “You’ll have to buy one from me.”

Steve winks at him, a completely cheesy move that’s meant to be as corny as Bucky’s flirting. If it’s over the top, Bucky doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he just beams, like Steve has had the most wonderful idea.

  
This is how both of them end up manning their own kissing booths, like some kind of ludicrous teen movie, but like, at college.

Steve gets his own booth since he’s the only one representing the Environmental Justice Club, but his table is in between one fraternity and one sorority. Neither of them are Bucky’s, but one of them is Rhodey’s, who Steve only knows through Tony who he only tangentially knows through Bucky. He can see Bucky’s booth though, a table set up within viewing distance. Bucky already has a substantial line and it’s barely noon.

Steve tries not to look at the line and feel a little jealous, somewhat dejected in the pit of his stomach. He has his own line to worry about, anyway, and it’s not super long, but also it’s not _not_ long either. As the saying goes, Steve’s line is just right.

The first person in his line is some blonde freshman girl. She has pretty eyes and a nice smile and tells Steve that she liked his environmental booth the other week and is a big fan of his presidential campaign. She puts the $5 into the empty fishbowl in front of Steve and leans forward to kiss him.

The second person is a boy, actually, which Steve finds both flattering and pleasing. He’s a bald-headed, pleasingly muscular, black junior boy who introduces himself as Eli and who Steve is almost certain he’s seen competing professionally with the debate team. Eli tells him he hates the Greek system, but he heard Steve was tabling and he thought it was great and also he wanted to break any heterosexual conformity people would be expecting from this event. Eli puts his $5 in for one kiss, but Steve laughingly gives him two for the heterosexuality comment.

It goes on like that for a while, actually, with people stepping up and paying and Steve talking to them and them making Steve laugh and after a while his lips start to feel a little chapped.

Almost as though she senses it, the next person steps up and hands Steve her little tin of lip balm.

Steve looks up and his throat goes dry.

“Peggy?”

“Steve,” Peggy smiles. “Your mouth looks a little dry.”

“I--thanks,” Steve says, trying not to turn pink. He gratefully puts on the lip balm and looks up at her. “Are you--uhhh.”

“Here for a kiss?” Peggy laughs. “Perhaps. You are quite popular. I just had to know what all the fuss was about.”

Steve bites the inside of his cheek to keep from blushing, hoping the sharp pain would distract his fair skin from showing every emotion that goes through his body.

“I cannot believe they’re allowing this,” Peggy says, looking around at all of the lines, the banners, the frat bros and sorority girls kissing their clients. “I imagine the health center will have much more traffic over the next few weeks.”

Steve hadn’t thought about that. For a moment he panics about whatever disease he might have caught or caused. Then he realizes whatever anyone could give him, he’s probably already had, or worse.

“It’s for a good cause?” he offers.

“Yes, I am sure fraternity boys kissing hot college girls is saving the world,” Peggy snorts.

“How else are we supposed to combat climate change…” Steve says slowly and Peggy laughs out loud.

“Yes, of course,” she says. “How could I forget? We can fix the hole in the ozone layer with swapped saliva.”

Steve makes a face.

“Gross, Pegs.”

Peggy grins at him. Then she slowly opens her purse and takes out a five dollar bill.

“Steve Rogers, may I help you save the penguins?”

Steve’s stomach swoops, it really does. His stomach is always a swooping mess when it comes to Peggy.

He’s surprised, though, when it remains that way. It’s a swoop, that’s it. No burning up, no sweaty palms, no lingering anxiety. Just pure, unadulterated affection and a little bit of a swoop.

Peggy looks at him and steps closer. Steve feels a little giddy.

No, he feels a lot giddy.

Peggy’s beautiful. Her hair is pinned back in her chocolate brown curls, red lips, navy jacket, all of it. She reaches forward and Steve reaches forward and it’s more than a five dollar kiss, it’s the kiss Steve’s been waiting for, for so long.

And it’s nice.

Peggy’s soft and warm and her hand goes to his new hair and he leans up into her and she smells _wonderful_ and it’s just, nice.

When they break apart, she smiles.

“That didn’t feel like it did before,” she says.

“Oh,” Steve breathes out.

And then realizes, _oh._

“Peg. You remembered?”

“Steve,” Peggy laughs quietly. “You absolute sop. I never forgot.”

Steve pauses, his eyes growing wide.

“Wait, what?”

“You just never seemed ready to do anything about it.”

It takes a moment for Steve to process it, for his mind gears to crunch through the words she’s said.

“I didn’t know--” Steve says with a gasp. “Fuck, I thought--maybe you didn’t remember. Or it didn’t mean anything--”

“I have been wanting to kiss you since we met, you silly boy,” Peggy says. She sounds a little sad. “But it seems I might have waited too long.”

“Peggy?” Steve says.

“Steve, I have two eyes,” Peggy says. “And I know what a kiss can feel like, when it’s with the right person. At the right time. It felt like that with us once.”

She leaves the rest unsaid. _But it didn’t feel like that this time_. _It doesn’t feel like that anymore._ And as much as Steve wants to deny it--because he has been waiting for Peggy to say something, he has been _yearning_ to have another chance with her, with the girl of his dreams--he knows she’s right. The kiss had been fine. It had even been nice. But it hadn’t pulled his breath up short. He hadn’t felt it in his toes.

“Can I take a guess?” Peggy asks.

Almost unconsciously, Steve’s eyes flicker through the lines toward another booth, a booth within eyesight. Blue eyes and soft brown hair and a smile that curves up, lights up an entire face.

“Ah,” Peggy says. “I thought as much.”

Steve wants to feel ashamed, or sheepish. He wants to feel guilty because he’s wanted Peggy for _so long_ and here she is, five dollars into his fishbowl, waiting in front of him, and all he can think about is a head leaning against his shoulder, Funfetti crumbs on a chin. Sharing earbuds on a field in the middle of a cool Fall night.

“It’s okay, Steve,” Peggy says and she sounds like she means it. “I’ll survive. You two are--you’re good together. Anyone who sees you two can see.”

“I don’t know,” Steve says. He chews on his bottom lip. “What if he doesn’t feel the same?”

“Steve, I adore you,” Peggy says. “But there’s only one way to find out. And it’s not by standing here asking _me_ about it.”

She’s always been direct, Peggy Carter. Brutally honest, terribly pragmatic, and always to the point. Steve will always, _always_ love her, in some way.

“One more for the road?” Steve looks back at her with a half-smile. “On the house.”

“On the planet, as it were,” Peggy laughs, but she doesn’t seem opposed. She puts a hand on Steve’s cheek, leans forward, and kisses him again.

* * * *

Bucky tries not to look over at Steve’s booth too much. He can only do it so many times directly and people keep getting into lines in between them, stopping him from doing it subtly either.

His heart beats in his veins, thumps there steadily, nervously. It’s not just that he’s nervous about other people kissing Steve. It’s that he’s thinking of doing it himself.

What’s to stop him from dropping $5 into Steve’s fishbowl and claiming a kiss for charity?

Natasha, who’s not participating in the fundraiser, but is standing there making commentary in a low voice, raises an eyebrow at him.

“James,” she says, knowingly. “Are you thinking of doing something stupid?”

“It’s not stupid,” Bucky mutters to himself.

A pretty girl with brown hair and green eyes steps up to his booth. He redirects his uneasy energy into his signature casual smile, a little charming, a lot flirty. She seems _thrilled._ The girl donates the $5 and leans forward expectedly.

Bucky kisses her, as a gentleman, and after she walks away, happy and pink, he sighs.

“What’s his line like?” he mutters to Natasha.

Natasha could not roll her eyes louder if she tried.

“You tell me,” she says. “You can barely look away.”

Bucky glares at her and then turns back to his line.

A twink with blond hair and floral converses is at the front of the line. He has a nose ring and ink crawling down his sleeve.

“Shit,” Bucky mumbles while Natasha says, “ _Good grief._ ”

As the boy exchanges his money for his kiss, Bucky can’t control how hard his heart pounds or how he might imagine he’s kissing a _different_ blond twink.

  
He takes a break at some point, when his lips are chapped and he’s tired of putting on the full blast of his charm for charity. He’s leaning in to ask Natasha whether she thinks it’s a bad idea to go over to Steve when half of the non-participating members of his frat show up. Well, Rumlow anyway. And Tony, of course.

“That’s quite the bowl of money,” Rumlow grins. “How many gay boys you kiss?”

Bucky feels something like anger stab at his good mood. He turns to Rumlow with a smirk.

“Why, need some tips? I can show you what I know, for a price.”

“Stop hitting on the people you live with!” Tony interrupts just as Rumlow’s about to open his mouth to say something stupid and offensive, undoubtedly. Tony looks over at the line Bucky’s been watching all day. “How’s his line?”

“Been packed all day,” Bucky says, hiding his disdain with pride. “People are very receptive to Steve Rogers. Hey, how’s your line, Tony?”

Tony’s line had been very long, what with his rich boy upbringing and his fuckboy tendencies. Still, he looks a little nervous.

“Fine, fine,” Tony says dismissively. “Great. Single-handedly helping cure leprosy or whatever.”

“You look a little jittery, Stark,” Bucky leans forward, grinning. “Rogers got your tongue?”

That makes Rumlow laugh ugly and loud for some reason.

Bucky’s eyes flicker over to him in irritation.

“Funny you say that,” Rumlow says. “Because _someone_ got his tongue earlier.”

Bucky had been about to turn back to Tony when he freezes a little.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Rumlow grins. “That Carter bitch. They looked really cozy. Kissed twice. Looking at each other all soft and shit.”

Oh.

 _Oh._ Of course, this was the perfect time for Steve to get his kiss again. To make sure he and Peggy had something.

Which they did, of course they did.

“Who knew Rogers had it in him?” Rumlow sneers. “Tonguing someone that out of his league. Think they’re fucking?”

Rumlow’s voice is just an annoying buzzing in his ears, distant and inconsequential. Bucky feels the disappointment hit him like a sledgehammer, his stomach dropping, his heart pounding against his ear drums. He feels warm around the collar, trying to swallow his despair.

“James,” Natasha murmurs, fingers on his wrist.

“Who cares about _that_?” Tony says loudly. “We’re in a crisis! Focus on me!”

Bucky stands up suddenly.

“What’s wrong with you?” Tony blinks.

“I have to—” Bucky says. “I have to do something.”

He slips out from being his booth, ignoring Rumlow and Tony’s watchful eyes. Natasha doesn’t move. She knows when Bucky needs her help and when he has to go deal with his own breaking heart.

“Guess I can’t blame that bitch,” he hears Rumlow say, distantly. “Rogers looks like a good little twink these days. I might even vote for him.”

“Hey!” Tony squawks. “Whose side of this bet are you on anyway?”

Bucky shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and elbows his way past the crowd.

* * * *

Steve can feel his pulse race, his body running on nervous energy and nervous energy alone.

“Go,” Peggy says with a smile.

Steve looks at the five dollar bill in his hand. Is he stupid? Maybe.

Is he stupidly in love?

Ugh, not even like. Like, actually _love_.

Okay, also maybe.

He’s about to do it, work up the nerve to go over to Bucky’s booth, when Brock Rumlow appears.

“Hey,” the other boy says with a grin. He’s wearing a leather jacket, hands in his pockets.

“Hey,” Steve says distractedly. “I was actually just going to—”

“Can I help?” Rumlow asks.

“What?” Steve says.

“Donate to the EJC,” Rumlow says. He gestures at Steve’s booth.

As distracted as Steve is, he feels all of his mental energies come grinding to a halt.

“Are you...do you want me to kiss you?” he blinks.

“What the hell,” a loud voice says behind Rumlow.

Rumlow turns around and Steve sees him. Peggy turns to look too. A lot of people around them do.

“Oh,” Steve says and he feels that familiar rush again, all jittery, happy nerves. “Bucky!”

Bucky has his hands shoved in his pockets, the lines of his shoulders rigid. He looks _pissed_.

“What the fuck are you doing, Rumlow?”

“He was just—” Steve starts.

“Donating to a cause?” Rumlow raises an eyebrow. “That’s why we’re here right?”

Bucky seems so hostile to this, so _livid_ that Steve watches the scene with confusion. The tension is nearly palpable. He has no idea what’s going on.

“Since when do you care about the environment?” Bucky asks loudly. “Since when do you care about _anything_?”

It’s so unlike Bucky--so _mean_ , that Steve stares at him.

“Buck, he’s--”

“Shut up, Steve,” Bucky snaps and Steve isn’t taken aback so much as he is immediately irritated.

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” Steve says waspishly.

"You don't know what's going on--" Bucky says and Steve has heard this before, has heard it from _Peggy_ and he didn't take it well from her either.

His earlier good mood, his excitement drains and is replaced by an explosive, bright kind of anger. His hands curl into fists, his irritation like a hot wire.

"Then why don't you _tell me_ ," he says through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, Barnes," Rumlow says. "Why don't you tell Rogers what's going on? Don't you think he deserves to know?"

Something about the way he says that makes Steve pause and look away from Bucky. He doesn't miss the way that Bucky freezes too, the way the color drains from his face.

There are definitely other people watching them now, the crowd from the kissing booths suddenly turning toward the scene.

"What is he talking about, Bucky?" Steve says, frowning.

"Steve, I--" Bucky swallows, but doesn't finish his sentence. Suddenly, he looks overwhelmingly distressed, that look people get when they've done something and they're about to get caught.

Steve’s stomach twists.  
  
“What is it?”

"It's not fair to him, Barnes," Rumlow says. "Come on. He's a person, not just a bet."

Peggy inhales softly next to him and Bucky turns pink--a brilliant shade of angry, embarrassed, even guilty pink.

"A...bet," Steve says. Everything sounds very very quiet, like the sound has been leached out from around them.

"Steve," Bucky says. "Listen--"

"What bet, Bucky?" Steve asks quietly.

"It was--" Bucky swallows and moves closer, but Steve jerks back. "It was stupid. It was before I knew you. I'm so sorry, Steve please listen--"

" _What bet, Bucky_?" Steve asks, louder this time.

No one interrupts them. No one even moves.

Bucky looks down at his hands, miserably.

"That day at the party at Rho Delta. Last August. I had gotten dumped by my boyfriend, humiliated really and--I needed to do something to save my reputation.” Bucky winces. “Tony and I made a bet, about making someone into class president. He said I couldn't do it and I said I could."

Everything flashes through his head then--that party, Bucky helping him off the ground, the way he had suddenly appeared everywhere almost immediately after. How Bucky had randomly come up with the idea of the class presidency, said it was because it had just occurred to him, that Steve was what the campus needed, that he believed in Steve.

A charming smile and a few kind words, that’s all it had taken.

Steve feels like he's going to throw up.

"Why me?" Steve says. His mouth tastes funny.

Bucky doesn't seem like he wants to answer that one.

"Stark picked you," Rumlow interjects. "Saw you fall over yourself and thought it'd be a funny joke to pick the biggest loser he could find. Sorry, Rogers. You're not that, you're more than that. It was a shitty thing."

Bucky doesn't even have the decency to look up at that. His hands close into fists, but he still looks at his shoes. Like his fucking shoes are going to talk back to him. Or save him from this.

"You fucking asshole," Steve says and takes a step back. He's shaking. Oh god, he's _shaking_ he's so humiliated. "You made me believe we were friends."

"Steve, no--" Bucky looks up then. He moves forward and Steve stumbles back, hits the table behind him. "We _are_ friends. I wasn't lying--"

" _You were lying to me this entire time_ ," Steve nearly shouts. "I was nothing more than a fucking _bet_. The only reason you talked to me was because you thought I was _pathetic enough_ to be a _bet_. A bet to _save your reputation_."

“Steve, no--” Bucky tries, but Steve cuts him off.

“You were laughing at me this _entire_ time,” he does shout. His fingernails are digging so hard into his palms they’re close to drawing up blood. “Hanging out with me out of pity. Steve Rogers, the _biggest_ loser.”

"No. No, no, no--I'm sorry," Bucky begs. "I'm so, so sorry. Stevie--"

" _Don't_ ," Steve seethes. "Call me that. Don't call me anything again. I can't _stand_ looking at you."

Steve can feel his breath coming up short, he's so angry, fuck.

"Steve," Peggy murmurs, her hand at his arm. "Steve, love, breathe, you're going to give yourself an asthma attack."

Steve tears out of her grasp.

"Steve," Bucky pleads, but Steve's had enough.

He's had enough of _all_ of this. Of kissing booths and rich frat bros and Rumlow's syrupy sweet fake concern and everyone staring at them, taking pictures and videos like Steve doesn't have fucking _eyes_ and Tony Fucking Stark thinking he's the biggest loser on campus and Peggy trying to protect him and Bucky Barnes--Bucky Fucking Barnes, reaching out to him, looking at him like Steve's crushing his heart.

As though this wasn't all a lie.

God, as though Bucky hadn't just drawn a random name out of a fucking hat and happened to do everything in his power to make friends with it.

It could have been anyone, it just happened to be Steve. He could have hurt anyone, he just happened to hurt Steve.

There was nothing there but lies and a stupid fucking bet.

Steve shoves past him, shoves through the crowd, and runs.

* * * *

It all comes crashing down around Bucky's shoulders with a swiftness that takes his breath away.

He goes after Steve, but Steve doesn't want to see him. Refuses to talk to him. Bucky stands outside his apartment door for an hour, pounding on the door, begging Steve to listen to him, to give him a chance, to apologize.

Bucky feels like he’s drowning in an ocean of his own bad, stupid decisions, his own heart in pieces around his feet. He knows Steve’s right to hate him, but that doesn’t make it _easy_. It doesn’t stop his chest from hurting or make it any easier to breathe, knowing he hurt the best person he’s ever known. His anxiety is ratcheted up so deadly high it’s no longer anxiety, it’s all of his stupid fucking fears manifest in a way he didn’t realize they could be. All this time he had worried he would fuck things up with his family and instead he had fuck things up with the most important person in his life. The person he _loves_.

He knocks and pleads for long enough that, eventually, the door opens and Sam comes out.

"Barnes," Sam says quietly. "Stop. He doesn't want to see you. Please go home.”

“Sam,” Bucky says. He can hear how ragged he sounds, can feel the wrecked voice reverberate in his ruined chest.  “I just have to explain. I just need one minute with him.”

“That’s not my decision or yours,” Sam says. “We both know he's earned that right. You did him dirty."

"I know," Bucky says, almost desperately. "I know. I'm sorry. It was stupid. I fucked up."

"Yeah," Sam says and his voice is harder this time. "You did. That's my best friend in there, the greatest guy I've ever met and the greatest guy _you'll_ ever meet and you fucked with him. You humiliated him. You broke my best friend's fucking heart. So I don’t care how _you_ feel. I'm not really inclined to be on your side here."

"I know," Bucky says. His voice is hoarse by now. "I deserve that, I know I do. But--it's not. It was fucked up, but it wasn't fake. It was all real."

"Maybe," Sam says. He has his arms crossed at his chest and moves from one foot to the other. "Maybe you're right and you know you fucked up and you're sorry and all of that. That's between you and Steve. But my job, as his best friend, is to protect him from every asshole who hurts him and guess what? You're that asshole. So you need to leave."

Bucky can't blame Sam, he really can't.

He's heartbroken himself and guilty and absolutely miserable, but he nods.

He turns around to leave, but not before he looks back.

Sam opens the door to go back inside and Bucky sees him--just a glimpse through the open door. A flash of blond hair and blue eyes, rimmed red, an oversized hoodie with the hood pulled up. Something twists in Bucky’s chest. The need to go to him, to pull him into his arms and comfort him.

He's lost that right.

He's lost every right to Steve Rogers.

  
Bucky goes back to the frat house, ignores every single person who looks at him or tries to talk to him, and slams the door to his room.

He throws himself onto his bed and screams into his pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow will be the final postings! Spring, pt. II, and the epilogue! (+ artwork!)
> 
> If you've been reading these chapters as they've been posted--you're a champ. They're ridiculously long.


	5. spring semester. (march-may)

**spring semester. (march-may)**

The next few weeks are kind of a haze, if Steve’s going to be honest. He goes to class and goes to work and comes home and spends every intervening moment at the art studio. People don’t talk to him about the incident, but he can feel them talk _around_ him, like water flowing around a crag of rock, words he doesn’t hear, but knows surround him nonetheless.

He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care about anyone’s gossip or the sympathy in their eyes or even the remains of his presidential campaign. He doesn’t pull his name out of the race, but he doesn’t do anything else about it either. Steve sees campaign posters for Tony, for T’Challa, for someone named Nebula and ignores all of them.

Once, someone comes up to him and tries to tell him how wrong it was, what Bucky did, and Steve shoves past him so hard that the guy falls on his ass. Steve doesn’t even feel bad about it. He just wants to be left alone, just him and his artwork.

He doesn’t avoid Sam, but that’s the only person he still regularly sees. Well, the only person who still exists to him outside of his art studio.

“He was asking about you again,” Sam says one night, a rare Friday in when Sam isn’t practicing for the remaining Championship games and Steve isn’t taking his heartbreak and anger out on canvas.

They sit around the TV, Steve in his hoodie, Sam in shorts, big bowls of pasta on their laps.

“I don’t care,” Steve says and he thinks one of these days, if he says it enough, he’ll even believe it.

Because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that Bucky Barnes used him, humiliated him, took his heart and threw it into the shredder, and that despite all of that, Steve still misses him. He misses being able to call him about his day or text him stupid links. He misses eating with him in the cafeteria, laying out under the stars together, or even just studying side-by-side. He misses Bucky like he’s missing a limb and that’s not fucking _fair_ because after all of this, Bucky doesn’t deserve that kind of love or loyalty from him.

“He’s a mess, if it makes you feel better,” Sam says. “He doesn’t really talk to anyone. He’s shut out Stark and Rumlow. Okay on the field, but T’Challa’s mostly being the team leader now.”

Steve snorts, bitterly.

“Of course,” he says. “He did it to himself, but someone else is bearing the consequences of his actions for him.”

Sam sighs next to him as he picks his beer off the table.

“Listen, I know he was an ass, but--”

“No,” Steve says immediately. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Steve,” Sam starts and Steve shakes his head violently.

“I don’t care, Sam,” he says. “I don’t care if his life is in ruins. I don’t care if he actually cares what he did, if he feels _bad_. He _should_ feel bad. His life _should_ be in ruins. What he did was shitty. It was sadistic. God. He’s known about this since last August. He’s been conning me for half a year. Longer.”

“It’s fucked up,” Sam murmurs in agreement. “I’m not sticking up for him, I’m really not. But for what it’s worth, he’s miserable.”

It doesn’t make Steve feel any better.

Nothing makes Steve feel any better.

  
The only bright spot in this entire situation is that his art show is a month away and finally, after months of breaking his back, after months and months of untameable anxiety, Erskine finally seems to see something in Steve’s art.

He finishes two pieces at studio and decides he wants different lighting and a more varied set of paints to finish Blue Melancholia and the untitled yellow work he had started the last time he was still happy. He drags them carefully to the art studio one day, working on them quietly as Erskine wanders around the room.

The professor stops occasionally, looking over his artists’ shoulders, murmuring words of encouragement and asking questions when he finds a detail fascinating or wanting. Usually when he stops at Steve’s easels, he smiles and asks polite questions or points out why a stroke works or doesn’t work. These are the times he says _more_ or _almost_ and sends Steve’s head into a tailspin.

Erskine admires something that Jessica Jones has angrily painted and stops at Loki’s easel to ask him a question before coming to Steve. Steve feels his stomach prickle with nerve. The pieces aren’t finished yet. He hasn’t even told Professor Erskine about them. Blue Melancholia he’s been painting slowly, in bits and pieces, when he’s felt sad or alone or just lost. After Bucky had seen it the first time, he had kept asking Steve about it, about what it meant, about what it made him feel, about who those eyes could belong to, as though he didn’t know and Steve didn’t know, even though they both did.

Steve had turned on a Sinatra Spotify playlist, and poured a glass of wine on his mother’s birthday. He had gotten well and fully drunk and called Bucky, who had said he needed to do something about his feelings. Steve had stood in front of his canvas with a palette of blue and black and painted and cried.

Untitled Yellow he thinks he’s halfway finished with. It reminds him of Bucky now, the bright color, the sweeping, abstract shape of it. He doesn’t know how to finish it, not now that everything’s ruined. He considers throwing it out and starting all over again.

“Oh,” Erskine says now, disrupting Steve’s thoughts. “ _Oh_.”

He’s leaning forward and examining both pieces quietly, Steve standing nervously next to him.

“Mr. Rogers,” Erskine finally says and turns to Steve. He sounds serious enough that Steve nearly melts on the spot. But then his face breaks out into a genuinely pleased smile. “I have been trying to get you to open yourself up for the past two years. This. _This_ is what I’ve been waiting for.”

Steve feels his cheeks warm.

“These pieces. Finally, you have been painting from here--” Erskine taps Steve’s chest. “And not here.” He taps Steve’s temple.

Steve flushes then, the relief washing over him. He feels warm and bubbly with pride.

“Oh,” he says, embarrassed. “Thank you, Professor Erskine.”

Professor Erskine smiles at him warmly and turns back to the paintings to look at them closer.

  
It hadn’t been until later, after he was sharing a celebratory drink with Sam--and Peggy--that the irony of it all bowled him over. He had been reaching for his phone, happy, eager to share the news with Bucky, when it all came crashing into him.

The reason Professor Erskine thought he had opened up enough to paint them. Or, rather, the person behind it.

Of course. Of fucking course.

Steve closed his eyes, sad, bitter, and tired, and reached for another glass of wine instead.

* * * *

The unspoken irony in his life, of course, is that although Bucky is a complete, miserable disaster in every which way, SHIELD is unstoppable on the soccer field. They breeze through their games against Triskellion the first round, 2-0 away and 3-0 at home, Boston University the second round, 3-1 away and 2-1 at home, and Jotunheim in the third round, 1-1 away and 2-0 at home. They’re matched with Indiana, last year’s runner ups, for the quarterfinals and their first single elimination game. Bucky tries to focus, tries to be the leader that he used to be, but he’s under no impression that he’s an asset to the team anymore. T’Challa takes to leadership naturally and under him, they continue flourishing. For once, Bucky’s happy to cede the spotlight to someone else, to let someone else take charge while he nurses his broken heart.

He misses Steve nearly every moment of every day. It’s not a matter of pride anymore, of his reputation, which might be irreparable now, or the bet, which he might still lose, because the person he wants to share those things with won’t talk to him. Hell, every time they come close to passing one another on campus, Steve just turns on his heels and speedwalks away.

Bucky watches his retreating back every time, riddled with guilt, heartbroken, missing his very best friend.

He wants to go after him every time, show up at Pym’s or at the library and he even had the one time, but both Clint and Peter had been very clear--Steve didn’t want to see him, he needed to leave. Bucky doesn’t try again after that, the coward that he is.

He can’t bare to see it, the hatred in Steve’s eyes. He thinks it would break him entirely.

Sam was right, anyway. Steve had earned the right to refuse to see Bucky ever again, if that’s what he wants.

So Bucky keeps to himself as much as he can, eating lunch by himself or with Natasha, going straight to soccer practice and then back to his room to stare forlornly at his research papers, the little astronaut on his writing notebook staring at him, untouched, next to the small pile of LSAT prep books his father had mailed him and which he had never opened.

One night, Natasha can’t take it anymore.

“I know you’re going through something and I’m not going to say I told you so, but I am going to tell you to knock it off,” she says. “You did what you did and he said what he said. Let’s get drunk, your morosity is depressing me.”

  
She drags him to a bar despite his protests.

“Sit your ass down here,” she says. “I’m going to get us shots.”

Bucky’s too tired to fight her, so he just nods, running his fingers over the dark grains of the table while Natasha disappears to get them alcohol.

She’s barely halfway across the room when she gets stopped by Clint. Bucky, who knows Natasha well enough to know that she’s not not interested in Clint, sighs and tries to sink into his stool. Maybe if he pulls himself smaller he’ll disappear altogether.

He’s in the middle of disappearing when he hears a familiar voice.

“Bucky.”

Bucky blinks at his fingers and then looks up to see--

“Loki,” he says. “Hey.”

His ex stands there with a beer in his hands, his head cocked thoughtfully. His hair has grown some and he has some piercings in his ears that he didn’t have before. A hammer necklace around his neck. Loki looks, well, the same in some ways and different in others.

Bucky honestly hasn’t thought about him in months.

“Can I sit here?” Loki asks after a moment of silence.

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky says. “Nat just went to get drinks.”

He cranes his head over his shoulder to look for her, but he can’t find her all of a sudden.

“I saw her step outside with Barton,” Loki says with a smile. “Are they--?”

“Who can say?” Bucky shrugs. He turns back to Loki, who slides his glass over to Bucky. “Thanks. Since when do you drink beer?”

“I have recently developed a...tolerance for it,” Loki says. He pushes his dark curls over his shoulder. He looks beautiful, of course. Loki’s always looked exceptionally beautiful.

“That’s a change,” Bucky says in surprise. He takes a mouthful of the beer.

“A lot of things have changed,” Loki says. He fiddles with his necklace.

“I guess so,” Bucky says. That’s an understatement if there was one. He sighs.

“I have heard some things,” Loki says carefully. It’s honestly more careful than anything he’s said to Bucky in the past.

“I bet,” Bucky mutters. And then he winces at the choice of his words.

Loki snorts and puts his hand out for the beer. Bucky slides it back.

“Listen, Bucky,” Loki says. Bucky looks up at green eyes, if not kind, then at least genuine. “I’m sorry for what happened at the beginning of the school year. I was wrong to break up with you that way. I was frustrated and bored and, if I’m going to be honest, a little pretentious.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“Thor likes to remind me of it every day,” Loki says with a half smile. “I could have treated you like a human, even if I did want to break up with you. I didn’t and I apologize for that.”

Bucky swallows, nodding. Something eases in his chest. He couldn’t say what.

“I was a shitty boyfriend--or, significant other? Whatever I was to you,” Bucky says. “You wanted things to be a certain way and I never listened. I never really listened to anything. We were the It couple or whatever and I was too caught up in enjoying that. I get why we had to break up. It was the right decision.”

Loki nods and takes a sip of his beer.

“I think we both found better things,” he says. “Better people for us.”

Bucky looks down at the table and Loki pushes his beer back to him.

“Thor told me everything,” he says. “How are you doing?”

“No great,” Bucky admits. He takes a sip, not tasting what he’s drinking. “I feel like I keep fucking everything up. With Steve, with my dad, with the soccer team. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t ruin everything.”

Loki snorts at that.

“What?” Bucky looks up at him, irritated.

“Bucky, do you know what the most frustrating thing about you was?” Loki asks.

“I get a feeling you’re about to tell me,” Bucky grips the glass hard.

“You never take ownership for your actions. You always talk about them like they’re happening to you or they’re out of your control,” Loki says, leaning closer. “Or as though you have no power to change the course of them.”

Bucky definitely feels irritated now.

“Your point?” he says icily.

“You fucked up,” Loki says. “You made a mess of things with Rogers because of a _bet_ that _Tony Stark_ goaded you into. You’re letting T’Challa pick up your slack on the soccer team because you’re miserable about Rogers. You probably still haven’t told your father you have no desire to go to law school.”

“Are you just here to make me feel shit about myself? Because I can do that all by myself,” Bucky snaps.

“Yes,” Loki says emphatically. “You can do that and you can do anything else you actually choose to. You fucked things up! Who cares! People fuck things up! Do something about it. _Grow a backbone_ , Barnes.”

Bucky flushes, a warm, almost angry feeling moving through him. It takes him a moment to realize it isn’t anger at Loki, it’s anger at himself.

“Make it up to Rogers,” Loki says. “Stop relying on T’Challa for everything. _Tell your father you do not want to go to law school_.”

Bucky’s head buzzes, although it’s not because of the alcohol. He’s remembering a night under the stars.

_“It feels like everything has been chosen for me and no one’s asking me what I want,” Bucky had said._

_“Well,” Steve had replied, looking at him. “What do you want?”_

“You’re an ass,” Bucky says once his head stops spinning. He takes Loki’s beer and drains a third of it before giving it back. “But, you’re right. Thank you.”

It takes a lot to take advice from one’s ex, but Loki hadn’t said anything Bucky hadn’t needed to hear. The truth of the matter was that he had been hiding behind his anxiety, his indecision for a long time now. Bucky had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Steve had told him time and time again that he was entitled, that he was spoiled. Bucky hadn’t really heard what he was saying. He hadn’t really understood what that fully meant.

He’s not sure why it’s Loki that gets through to him now. Maybe it’s because Loki’s just as entitled. Maybe it’s because he had started this entire thing. Or maybe it was just seeing him, still so _Loki_ , but changed too.

It makes Bucky think maybe he can change as well. That maybe being Bucky Barnes isn’t just about accepting what happens to him or around him, but about making the changes he needs and wants as well.

Natasha eventually returns with their shots, long after Loki leaves.

“Are you okay?” she asks, sliding him a shot of vodka.

Bucky takes it with a breath.

“No,” he says. “But I’m trying to be.”

  
The next day, Bucky goes to the library. It’s one of Steve’s shifts, which he knows because he has Steve’s schedule memorized by heart. He doesn’t see Peter this time. The library is pretty packed, but pretty quiet overall. Steve is manning the front desk, scanning back books and looking at his own textbooks in the meantime.

His hair has grown a little longer, but it’s still the nice cut that Natasha gave him. He’s wearing glasses again, but they’re normal this time, less bug-eyed. He’s in one of the new soft t-shirts and an army jacket that is just oversized enough to look good on him. It’s a mixture of the old Steve and the new Steve. Bucky thinks he’s never seen anyone more perfect.

He takes a breath, ignoring the stab of panic in his chest, and approaches the counter.

It only takes Steve a moment to look up and see who it is. His hand is on a thick history book and he freezes, his expression hardening.

“I know you don’t want to see me,” Bucky says quietly, maintaining some distance from the front desk. “And you’ve earned that. Just give me one minute and I’ll never bother you again.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move away either. He watches Bucky quietly, coldly.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Bucky says. “I’m so sorry. What I did was awful. I used you and I lied to you. I was arrogant and selfish. You’re right, about everything. If Tony hadn’t picked you out that night I probably never would have talked to you. That’s not a reflection of you, it’s a reflection of me. I’m every bit as spoiled and entitled as you said I was. And I get that now. I hide behind my anxiety and my family name and all of the things that make me Bucky Barnes. Except I never take responsibility for it. When something stresses me out, I run away from it. When I do something that has a consequence, I ignore it. I don’t take responsibility for my own actions. I let things happen to me and when those things aren’t things I want, I spiral.”

Bucky takes a breath.

“It doesn’t make what I did okay. You deserved better than that--you deserved better than the person I was to you. And I’m sorry for that. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive me and if you don’t, I’ll understand, but I want you to know--” Bucky looks up at him, his voice tight, his chest tight too.

“I hate the way it started, but I don’t regret it started. You’re the best person I’ve ever met. Every thing I said to you was real. Our friendship--what we had, it was _real_. I’m sorry I ruined that, so fucking spectacularly. But I never want you to think I was pretending. I wasn’t. I was realer with you than I’ve been with...anyone in my life. I’m sorry, Steve. I’m really, really sorry.”

Bucky doesn’t know if he’s expecting anything after his declaration, but he doesn’t get anything either. Steve just stares at him for another second and goes back to scanning his book.

Bucky’s heart sinks through his chest to his toes. It lays, or what remains of it, scattered on the ground.

He doesn’t blame Steve for not forgiving him.

He doesn’t even forgive himself.

But he had tried, for once. He knew what he wanted--Steve’s forgiveness, his friendship, his love--and he had tried.

And that, for Bucky Barnes, is good enough for now.

* * * *

Steve is distracted, the days leading up to the election. He still has people coming up to him, telling him they’re voting for him and he smiles at them and talks and says he’s grateful for their vote.

He doesn’t know if he still wants to be president. He doesn’t know much of anything anymore.

All he can think about is Bucky. Steve had been so angry when he had come up to him in the library, after everything. But he had been relieved too. He had missed Bucky, hadn’t really given himself a chance to look at him or look after him, even or especially, when he wanted to. It wasn’t healthy and he was still angry, but that didn’t stop his heart from lurching every time he saw Bucky on campus or heard someone talking about him and the soccer team. It didn’t stop him from feeling that deep-seated, gnawing ache when he looked at his Untitled Yellow painting.

Steve had listened to Bucky’s entire apology, had let it sink into his bones. Bucky had said everything he had wanted to hear, but had it been enough? Was it enough to forgive someone for using him, just because they said they were sorry?

But that’s not all and Steve knows it. The words keep circling in his head.

_You deserved better than that--you deserved better than the person I was to you._

_Our friendship--what we had, it was real._

And as much as Steve wants to hate Bucky, as much as he wants to write him off, all of him, he knows, somewhere deep inside, that he can’t. He didn’t deserve better than the person Bucky was to him, because Bucky had been nothing but kind and supportive and thoughtful to him. The bet aside, Bucky had never let him down, had never judged him or failed to be there for him when he needed it. He always had an encouraging word for Steve, a smile when Steve needed it the most. It was because of the person Bucky was to him that Steve had picked up that art brush, closed his eyes, and just painted.

Steve had trusted him.

He’s dismayed to find that somewhere, inside, he still does.

It was real and Steve knows that too.

But he’s still so humiliated and still so hurt. He doesn’t know if he has the capacity to forgive a betrayal like this, not even for someone he still loves.

  
He comes home late one day and Sam’s made dinner, left it covered in the microwave for him because he knows Steve forgets to feed himself, because he knows Steve’s been having a hard time and taking it out on the art studio. Steve feels indescribably disconsolate.

Sam, his chosen family.

Was there room for more than just him in his life?

“Hey,” Sam says, smiling up from the couch. He has one earbud in and is typing some paper. “Grab dinner and join me.”

Steve does.

“We’re through to the semifinals!” Sam says with a huge grin as Steve sits down with his plate of chicken and mashed potatoes.

“Wait, seriously?” Steve asks, eyes wide. He hasn’t been keeping track of the soccer team, mostly because thinking about Bucky makes him want to fall apart.

“Yeah!” Sam says. “Had a tough game against Indiana last weekend, but went through on penalties thanks to our main man, Clint!”

“Holy shit, Sam!” Steve says excitedly. “That’s amazing! When’s the semis?”

“This weekend,” Sam says. “It’s an elimination game, so we have the one shot. If we beat Stanford, we’re through to the final. Listen…”

“Yeah?” Steve is so thrilled for Sam, he forgets about his plate of food. He eagerly moves forward and nearly tips the whole thing over. “Whoops.”

“Careful there,” Sam says. Then he runs a hand across the back of his neck, looks sheepish. “If we make it through, to the final, well… It’d mean a lot to me. If you were there.”

“What? God, like you have to ask,” Steve says, grinning. “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Yeah?” Sam asks, looking pleased. Then he looks a little less comfortable. “It’s just. I mean, you know Barnes will be there, playing.”

Steve’s smile strains. He swallows.

“I know,” he says. “It’s okay. I’ll deal with it.”

“I don’t want you to have a shitty time,” Sam says. “If it’s too much, it’s okay.”

“No, no,” Steve says. “Sam, this is your big day. You’ve been there for me--God, for everything. From the beginning. My mom, my shitty year, the whole thing with Bucky--you’ve always had my back, no matter what. It would take a lot more than the mess of my love life to keep me from being there for you.”

That makes Sam look really emotional, which makes Steve feel really emotional. They look at their hands and then at each other and clear their throats and laugh.

“I love you, Wilson,” Steve says warmly, with feeling.

“Yeah, you’re okay too, Rogers,” Sam says with a half-grin. Then his smile fades into a scowl. “Now eat your damned chicken. I did not spend my good time warmin’ up my mama’s roast chicken for you to waste.”

“Wait, this is your _mom’s_ chicken?” Steve gapes at him. “What the fuck, if you’d told me that to begin with, I’d already be finished with it by now!”

“Hey, fuck you man!” Sam says, laughing.

The two of them sit next to each other, laughing and jostling each other and Steve tries to remind himself how lucky he is. He has Sam and he has Peggy and he has his art. He has a college education and he has Mrs. Wilson’s roast chicken.

The rest would fall into place, one way or another.

* * * *

Election Day dawns bright and clear as it were. Bucky finishes his independent research paper and sends it to Professor Danvers. He thinks he’s done the best he can and he’s starting to realize that sometimes that’s all he can do.

He changes and goes downstairs in his soccer shorts and a SHIELD COLLEGE SOCCER hoodie. At least he’s on brand.

He’s in the kitchen quietly eating a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, drinking coffee, and texting Becca when someone else shuffles into the kitchen.

Bucky looks up, sees Tony, and goes back to his bowl.

“Sorry,” Tony says, going behind Bucky toward the fridge and Bucky nods and moves out of his way.

He continues texting Becca in silence, apparently she can’t make it for the semis, but if they make it to the finals, she’s in. Bucky’s teasing her about how she got in trouble with George and Winifred last week for skipping two days of school.

“Who you texting?” Tony’s voice suddenly breaks the silence. He’s pouring himself a glass of milk.

“My sister,” Bucky shrugs and goes back to his phone.

“Right, yeah, of course,” Tony nods. He puts the milk back in the fridge and closes the door. “I always wish I had a sibling, actually. My parents were both older when I was born and then my dad was kind of an asshole and I guess I was a bit of a mess as a baby? My mom had a nightmare time trying to breastfeed me, I wouldn’t latch or something. She never lets me forget. So I guess they figured well one of him is enough, we can’t risk having two.”

Bucky looks up and raises an eyebrow.

One of the classic signs of Tony Stark being nervous is a classic Tony Stark Ramble.

“Sorry,” Tony mutters and drinks his milk.

Bucky waits him out.

It doesn’t take long.

“Listen, Barnes,” Tony sighs. Bucky looks up at him, eyebrow raised, and Tony deflates a little. “What happened--what went down with Rogers was, well, it was ugly. Of me. And of Rumlow, but no one expects better from that guy. Pepper reamed me out for my part in all of this and after my ego stopped smarting, I realized she was right. We were asses to Rogers, which sucks, but more importantly I was an ass to you. You’re my friend and a pretty damn good one, even if you are running my rival’s campaign.”

Bucky gives him a deadpan look.

“Er, ran. You ran my rival’s campaign,” Tony amends. Then he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry. I was a dick to you and you didn’t deserve that. If it makes you feel any better, both Pepper and Rhodey refused to talk to me for like, two weeks after they learned what happened.”

“It does actually, thanks,” Bucky says. Then he sighs and straightens. “It’s okay, Tony. We were all shitty. We were all in the wrong. It just sucks because Steve’s the one who got hurt in all of this and he didn’t deserve that. We made him the target of a bunch of bored, arrogant rich kids and that’s...gross.”

Tony wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t disagree.

“Well, you might still win--” he starts and stops at Bucky’s glare. “I meant, Rogers might still win. That’s a good thing!”

“Yeah, maybe,” Bucky shrugs. “We’ll see.”

Tony nods and finishes his milk.

“Sooooo,” he says. “Any chance you’re voting for--”

“No, Stark,” Bucky says. “I’m not voting for you.”

“Hey!” Tony exclaims. “After I apologized and everything!”

Bucky glares at him again and Tony puts up both of his hands.

“Okay, okay! I get it! We’re voting for Rogers here!”

“You too?” Bucky asks, taken aback.

“Yeah, whatever,” Tony says. “I don’t care. It seems like a lot of work and the robotics lab is kicking my ass. I should probably focus more on that anyway.”

Bucky shrugs and finishes his cereal.

“I guess we’ll see,” he says. “May the best man win.”

He rinses his cereal bowl and puts it on the rack to dry. Before he leaves, Tony stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Watch out for Rumlow,” he warns lowly. “He wants your captaincy. He’ll do anything to get it.”

Bucky’s stomach twists, hot and uncomfortable.

“I figured,” he says uneasily.

“He’ll do anything to hurt you,” Tony says, squeezing his shoulder. “Be careful, okay?”

Bucky nods, feeling a little nauseated.

“Thanks, Tony,” he says.

He sticks his hands in his hoodie pockets and goes to vote.

* * * *

“Oh, I was so proud seeing your name on the ballot!” Peggy says, wrapping her arms around him.

Both Steve and Sam went to submit their votes after lunch. They’re paper ballots, for some reason, as though SHIELD couldn’t afford to have some sophomore create a Surveymonkey poll they could send around the school listserv.

They run into Peggy after.

It _had_ been thrilling to see his name on the ballot, if he was being honest.

“So you voted for T’Challa, huh?” Steve asks with a sheepish grin and Peggy shoves his shoulder.

“Don’t be absurd!” she says. “T’Challa is quite nice, but no one replaces Steve Rogers in my life.”

“Not even Angie Martinelli?” Steve asks, raising an eyebrow and Peggy turns pink.

“What?” she asks, fumbling and pretending she has no idea what he’s talking about. When he snorts, she sighs. “Oh, how did you hear about that?”

“Romanoff told me,” Sam says with a little smirk. “Just so you know, people have eyes. She’s hot though, so good for you.”

“She’s more than that!” Peggy says, embarrassed. “But yes, I suppose she is rather hot.”

“I’m happy for you, Peggy,” Steve says and he means it.

“It’s nothing like that yet,” Peggy says with a smile. “Although I wouldn’t mind it if it ends up that way.”

Steve moves back and they survey the poll tent. A surprising number of people come in and out of it, considering it’s just a college student body election. Still, people come up to Steve after, pat him on the shoulder, tell him that he represents them, that they’re proud to have him on the ballot, that they voted for him and hope he kicks Stark’s ass.

And then, as though summoned, Tony Stark himself appears.

Steve watches him go into the tent with Rhodey and a strawberry blonde Steve thinks is Pepper Potts. It’s strange, really. After all of that, he holds no animosity toward Stark. He’s a dick and Steve’s not going to be friends with him any time soon, but he is who he is and Tony Stark is who Tony Stark is. Maybe everything that happened happened for a reason.

Tony sees Steve as he comes out of the tent, Rhodey and Pepper chatting behind him. He tenses, stopping in front of Steve, Sam, and Peggy.

“Rogers,” Tony says.

“Stark,” Steve nods his head.

For a moment no one says anything. Steve feels Peggy tense behind him and behind Tony, he sees Pepper shoot a disapproving warning look at the back of his head.

“Hey,” Tony finally says, breaking the silence. “I’m sorry for what happened. For my part in it. It was--it was fucked up. You have every right to punch me if that’s what you want.”

Steve looks at him and looks at Rhodey behind him. Rhodey shrugs like, _what are you gonna do? Sometimes your best friend deserves to get punched_.

Steve snorts.

“Tempting, but I’ll pass. I need my hand for art.”

Tony will never admit that he looks relieved, but Steve is pretty sure he does.

“Good, good,” he says. Then, abruptly, “Listen, we’re having an election...results party at the frat. It was your HQ once and I know it all ended up rather, uhhh, not great, but come over. Bring the crew with you. We can see who wins, split a beer, and pretend this never happened.”

“Man, are you serious?” Sam says behind Steve, voice raised, like he’s ready to _go off_ on Stark.

Steve appreciates it, he really does. But if the last few weeks has taught him anything, it’s that holding onto things isn’t necessarily healthy or even helpful. Shit happened. People were hurt. They’re in college. Everyone moves on.

Steve is trying to move on.

“Barnes won’t be there,” Tony says. “If it helps. He’s never home anymore. Always at the library or on the field or taking the LSAT or something, I don’t know.”

Steve frowns briefly, worrying that Bucky did actually capitulate, that he’s suffering under the LSAT and his father’s pressure again with no one to support him. Then Steve remembers it’s none of his business anymore.

“Sure,” he says with a shrug. “That sounds good.”

Everyone is silent for a beat after, like they can’t believe what Steve has said.

He shrugs again.

“As long as you have good alcohol,” he says.

“Oh, will I ever!” Tony says, relief, again, breaking over his face. “I’ll pull out the stops. I’ll have Fandral get us another keg. Do you like beer? Wait, do you not like beer? Tell me what you like and I’ll have it ready for you. Is there anything else you need? Wait, you have allergies, right? Barnes was telling me you’re allergic to like half of the known entities in the world, how is that by the way? If you want, I can have my dad--”

All of a sudden, Tony’s mouth is covered by a well-manicured hand.

“I am so sorry,” Pepper says. “For him and who he is as a person. We will have beer there. We look forward to seeing you tonight, Steve.”

Steve watches, amused, as Pepper and Rhodey drag Tony away, both of them hitting him upside his head at exactly the same time.

“What a fucking weirdo,” Sam mutters to himself.

“Are you sure about this, Steve?” Peggy asks quietly to him.

Steve sighs and shrugs again.

“Not really,” he says. “But at least by tonight this will all be over.”

  
It’s a party like that first one Steve went to, except this one has red, white, and blue streamers everywhere. Steve walks in with Sam to see his face plastered on a huge poster that’s been blown up. On the opposite wall is a huge poster of Tony’s face that’s been blown up.

“That guy is really something,” Sam says with distaste. He rolls his eyes. “You want a drink?”

Steve tries not to look around for a person he knows isn’t there.

“Yeah sure, thanks,” he says.

The frat house is pretty packed, if not crawling with people. Steve sees Fandral is manning the drinks again like it’s his God-given duty and possibly birthright. Sam stops to pick up two red solo cups and gets caught up in Fandral’s sphere of influence.

Steve barely manages to keep from sighing. He turns and almost runs into a huge wall of blond.

“Easy there,” the wall of blond says. Steve looks up into the most attractive face he has ever seen in this life. It’s attached to long blond hair, long limbs, and what definitely feels like a six pack. “Oh, hey. It’s you. Rogers.”

Steve blinks. Why does the hot blond wall know him?

“Thor,” the hot blond wall says. “President of the frat. Also, I think you know my brother--Loki?”

“Oh,” Steve says, finally recognizing him. “Yeah, hey. Loki’s told me...okay, Loki doesn’t really talk to me, but I remember Bu--I’ve heard about you.”

Thor chuckles.

“I’ve heard about you too. I guess the entire school has at this point,” he says gesturing around them.

“It’s a little weird,” Steve admits. He looks around at the decorations, at the weird election party meant for him and for Tony, as though they aren’t rivals in this race. “I guess you’re used to this kind of thing?”

“A little,” Thor says. Not only is Thor president of the frat, but he’s one of the school’s star hockey players. Rumor has it that he’s being looked at to be signed by the Rangers, not that Steve listens to campus gossip. “How are you holding up?”

Steve shrugs.

“Well for better or worse, I thought you ran a good campaign,” Thor says with a smile. It’s a little like being hit in the face with the strength of the entire sun. “You and Barnes did a good job.”

Thor doesn’t know him, not really, and if he knows about Bucky and Steve’s falling out, he doesn’t seem to care. So Steve doesn’t feel too bad asking him.

“Is he here?”

Thor looks around the crowd and shrugs.

“There are so many people here it’s possible. He could also be in his room. Or practicing. He’s always practicing for something these days.”

Steve nods. He feels numb to it. He feels numb to most things these days.

“Oh, I see my brother actually. If you’ll excuse me, Rogers,” Thor says and he’s disappeared into the crowd before Steve can say another word, which shouldn’t be possible because Thor has a good four inches on anyone in the room.

Steve sighs and fiddles with his shirt. As always, he thinks this has been a mistake.

Luckily, Sam comes back with the red solo cup of beer not too much later.

“You okay?” Sam asks handing it to him.

“Thanks,” Steve says. “I guess. When’s this thing supposed to be announced?”

“Aren’t you supposed to know that?” Sam asks wryly, sipping his beer.

Steve snorts and feels tired. He cares about this election, he does. He thinks he still wants to be school president, would even be a good one. Deep down, in the part of him that’s always hungry to prove himself, he wants to do this, he wants to beat Tony Stark in this one thing. He wants to prove to the popular kids, once and for all, that the world is not their fucking oyster.

He wants all of that and he wants none of it at the same time. He wants to be at home with his art brushes and his sketchpad.

He wants to be laying on the track field, staring up at the night sky with someone who makes him laugh.

“Something’s happening,” Sam mutters and Steve suddenly finds himself pushed forward.

“Looks like they’re announcing it!” Tony says into a fucking _microphone_ in the middle of the living room. He has a paper crown on his head and a sash across his chest, like the total douchebag that he is. Jesus.

Steve gets pressed forward, but luckily doesn’t lose sight of Sam. They stand together, not in the center of the room, but not off to the side either.

The crowd, which has been laughing and talking, sharing drinks and general fraternal revelries, quiets a little. Mostly, it seems, to stare at Tony, who has taken it upon himself to stand on a table in the middle of the room with the microphone.

“All right, quiet, everyone!” his voice booms into the speakers. “Listen up! We’re waiting for the call to declare who won the race today. Remember, we’re all winners here, the only loser is--well, the person who didn’t run. Wait, is that right? Pepper? Pepper!”

Steve rolls his eyes with a sigh. Is there any human being on the planet more insufferable than Tony Stark?

“Is there any human being on the planet more annoying than Stark?” a voice next to him says.

Steve turns his head and sees Rumlow, staring ahead at Tony, a frown on his face.

“It’s a talent, I guess,” Steve says with a shrug. He finds that he really doesn’t feel one way or another toward Rumlow. He took a part in that disastrous day, but without him, Steve still probably wouldn’t know what he had been to Bucky. What Bucky had done to him.

“He’s kind of an ass,” Rumlow says. “If he wins--”

“Then it means he got the votes,” Steve says. “He’s clearly fine with the attention. Maybe it’s for the best.”

“Don’t say that,” Rumlow says and puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder. He squeezes it in what’s undoubtedly meant to be a reassuring manner. “You got this, Rogers.”

Steve shrugs again. He tips back his cup and drains half of the beer.

It’s a little too much for him and he immediately hiccoughs and feels lightheaded. Rumlow helpfully thumps him on the back.

Suddenly, the room goes quiet as Tony’s cell phone starts chiming very loudly.

“Yes?” he answers it. “Yes, Dean Coulson, I get it. Yes, yes, I understand. Lots of people, stiff competition, yadda yadda. Get on with it man!”

The crowd watches in complete silence as Tony listens to Coulson over the phone. Steve feels a little thrill run through his stomach, just the briefest stab of anxiety.

This is it, he thinks. This is do or die.

Sam squeezes his hand next to him. Rumlow thumps him on the back supportively.

“I see,” Tony says. He doesn’t look pleased. “Thank you, Dean. Yes. Of course. A well run campaign. Uh huh. Okay. Bye.”

Tony hangs up the phone.

The crowd seems to sway from anticipation.

“It seems,” Tony says and he looks through the crowd, searches out a face, and settles when he finds Steve. “It was a close race. One of the closest in the history of the school. Lots of voters. Best turnout in the school’s history, even.”

“Out with it, Stark!” someone--probably Fandral--yells from the audience.

“It seems,” Tony says carefully. “The school was tired of another rich, privileged, white boy.”

Shit.

The crowd breathes, processing this. Then, suddenly, eyes turn toward Steve, every pair of eyes. Steve sways on his feet, disbelieving.

“The next student body class president,” Tony says, inhaling sharply and then exhaling, just completely deflating. “Is--”

Steve feels Rumlow’s hand on the back of his neck.

“T’Challa.”

Oh.

_Oh._

The crowd is stunned into silence for just a second, and then loud, triumphant cheers erupt. People yell in victory, whistle, do a trilling noise with their tongues. Apparently, somewhere in the corner, T’Challa is actually here, at this party that ignored him completely. He’s hoisted onto shoulders--M’Baku, Steve recognizes, and a bald-headed girl with gold around her neck.

The room, which had been joyous before, now become raucous, nearly overjoyed with good spirit.

Steve laughs. No, Steve _laughs_.

“Fuck,” Rumlow says next to him. “It should have been you.”

Steve, mid-laughter, straightens, shakes his head. He’s--fuck, he feels all right. No, he feels _better_ than all right, he feels practically light.

“Nah,” he says. “The best man won.”

He finishes the rest of his beer and Sam grabs him in a hug. Rumlow, next to him, leans over.

“How about that drink?” he asks. “Wanna get outta here?”

Steve nods his head in relief.

“God, yeah,” he says. “Please.”

* * * *

Bucky doesn’t think he’s going to go downstairs for the party. He thinks he could sleep this entire day away, just him cocooned in his self-isolation and misery. Then the party starts and Natasha texts him that Fandral has another keg and he’s just so out of his mind sick of himself that he shakes his head and joins them anyway.

Tony’s made sure the party is raucous, liberally supplied with alcohol, and as cheesy as election parties go. There are streamers everywhere, Tony’s face and Steve’s face looking up at him from every surface.

He shakes his head as he grabs a drink from Fandral. Fandral’s nice enough, spends about ten minutes talking to Bucky about his plans to join the CIA or something ridiculous like that.

Bucky takes the drink and walks around.

He’s still Bucky Barnes despite everything. People still want to talk to him, shake his hands, tell him good luck on the Championship final.

He’s standing next to Fandral when Tony takes center stage. Bucky hasn’t caught sight of Steve, if he’s even here. He hopes he is. He hopes he isn’t.

He drinks more of his beer.

At some point, Tony gets the call and everyone in the audience goes silent. It’s strange, because Bucky had cared about this so much at some point. But now it all just seems distant, like words spoken underwater.

When Tony announces that T’Challa’s won, Bucky feels a surge of disappointment. He likes T’Challa, a _lot_ , and he thinks he’ll make a fantastic student body president. But he had been rooting for Steve. Not for Bucky’s sake, but for Steve’s own sake.

He wishes he could comfort him now, wherever he is.

Bucky knocks back the rest of his drink and turns to get some more from Fandral when, suddenly, there’s a commotion around him.

Clint comes skidding to a halt, nearly knocking into him.

“What the--” Bucky stares at him, but he feels nails dig into his arms instead.

Next to Clint, Natasha looks like she’s on fire--her features absolutely livid.

“Nat, what--”

“Steve--” Clint splutters. “Have you seen Steve--He--Rumlow--I saw him--”

Bucky’s stomach clenches in panic.

“Clint,” he says urgently, grabbing Clint’s shoulders. “What is it?”

Clint’s taking in big gulps of air like he’s been running miles.

“I heard--Rumlow--room--” he wheezes.

“ _Barton_ ,” Bucky barks.

“Oh for the love of--” Natasha growls and her nails dig in to Bucky’s arm harder. “Clint was in the bathroom and overheard Rumlow talking to some creep outside. Said he rented out a hotel room for Steve. Something about--”

“ _Roofies_ ,” Clint manages to get out.

Bucky rips away from Natasha’s hand. He’s shoving his way through the crowd blindly, with no regard for who he’s bodychecking out of the way. All he knows is that he has to get to Steve. Rumlow’s huge and their best defender. He goes to the gym six times a week. He’s probably on fucking steroids.

If he tries to roofie Steve--God, if he tries to force Steve back to a hotel and Steve isn’t able to fight him off--

Bucky feels the beer coming up through him, alcohol and bile rising up in his throat.

“Barnes?” Sam grabs him right before he’s about to launch himself out of the frat house. “What?”

“ _Wilson_ ,” Bucky spits out. “ _Come with me_.”

Sam doesn’t wait to be told twice. He spins on the balls of his feet and follows Bucky out into the night.

  
Bucky’s trying not to panic as they run through campus. He doesn’t know where Rumlow would have taken Steve, if Steve would have realized his intentions before they got to the hotel, if Steve would even agree to go to the hotel. Maybe he’s already been roofied.

Tony had told him. He’d said Rumlow would do anything to hurt him and he had been so obvious, it was so _clear_ that if anything happened to Steve, Bucky would—

Fuck. _Fuck._

Why had Bucky ever let him out of his sight? Why hadn’t he warned him about Rumlow?

Sam’s calling every hotel in the area, trying to get some information, but he keeps coming up dry.

Bucky’s heart is nearly pounding out of his ears, the adrenaline pumping through his veins. His head is fuzzy with anxiety.

“Come on, Steve,” he mutters out loud. “Where. Think. _Think_.”

He runs onto the track and field, just in case he’ll find him there, but it’s deserted except for the floodlights and a few underclassmen running around the track.

“Bucky,” Sam says urgently. “The art studio.”

“Fuck,” Bucky spits out and he feels it in his bones that that’s right somehow. He doesn’t wait for Sam, just turns on his feet and runs.

He pounds through the track and field, across the quad, and around half a dozen different buildings before he skids to a stop in front of the art building, clutching his side and breathing hard.

He sees two figures under the building’s light and is just about to call out to Steve when he hears a loud shout and scream.

“ _Steve_!” Bucky bellows and runs forward toward them.

He gets there in time to see Steve, something in his hand, and Rumlow clutching at his eyes, yelling, and stumbling back.

“You _fucking asshole_ ,” Bucky shouts.

Rumlow turns toward him blindly.

Bucky winds his fist back and punches him.

* * * *

“Fuck, if you break your hand, can you even play soccer?” Steve mutters while binding up Bucky’s hand. “I know you use your feet, but I feel like you can’t play with a broken hand.”

They’re back at Steve and Sam’s place now, Sam running across the street to grab more supplies to help Bucky with the swelling.

Bucky’s sitting on their couch, his eyes wide and concerned, Steve just barely holding onto what sanity he has left.

He cleans Bucky’s knuckles, gently wiping down each one with a warm wet cloth. Then he sets about binding it with gauze, just to keep it steady. Luckily for Bucky, Steve and Sam have an inordinate amount of First Aid supplies, mostly because Steve has been known to get into a fight or seven.

“Steve,” Bucky says, his voice hoarse. “Steve I thought--”

“Clearly,” Steve says, but it’s without any heat.

“Clint told us he heard Rumlow bragging outside the bathroom,” he says. “He was gonna roofie you and take you to a hotel and--”

Steve sighs, trying to suppress his own horror and shudder.

“I know,” he says. “I mean I didn’t then. I caught on a little too late.”

Bucky takes his hand back after it’s wrapped and tries to flex it. The gauze is tight, holds his knuckles in place.

“How did you overpower him?”

“I’m barely human-sized, Bucky,” Steve says wryly. “You think I got this far in life without carrying pepper spray with me?”

“Shit,” Bucky says. He lets out an exhale so deep it’s like he expels it from the depths of his body.

Steve, who has barely had a chance to catch his breath since Rumlow tried to drug and manhandle him, can relate.

He lets out a sigh too and this time does let himself shudder.

“I’m so sorry,” Bucky says and, seemingly unthinkingly, wraps his arms around Steve. “I’m so so sorry. I was so scared.”

Steve stiffens in his arms for just a moment before warming a little. He puts his hand on Bucky’s back, strokes it gently. Somehow, Bucky seems to need this more than him.

“I’m okay, Buck,” Steve says quietly. “He didn’t hurt me. And you--uh, avenged my honor or whatever.”

“I’ve never thrown a punch like that before,” Bucky chuckles lowly.

“Really?” Steve asks, suddenly severe. “You could break your fingers if you don’t know how to throw a punch, Bucky.”

Bucky pulls back and looks Steve in the eyes.

“Why do you sound like you’re knowledgeable on the subject?”

Steve clears his throat noncommittally.

“Anyway,” he says. He looks down at Bucky’s hand and then back at him. “Thank you. I mean it.”

Bucky swallows, not looking away. His face shows a hundred different expressions that Steve can barely read. There’s fear and relief, concern and care. Guilt. Longing. Steve almost has to look away, it’s so much, so open.

“Steve,” Bucky says softly. If he apologizes again--Steve doesn’t know what he’ll do. He wants to scream. He wants to tell him that he forgives him. He’s so close and all Steve really wants is to be back in his arms again.

“Bucky,” Steve says steadily.

“I--” Bucky starts. He opens his mouth and then closes it. Steve thinks he’s going to do it, he’s going to say it again. Then, slowly, his expression shutters a little. “I’m sorry about the election. I really thought you had it.”

It’s so far from what Steve thought he was going to say that he pauses out of surprise.

“Oh,” he says. His heart thumps in disappointment. “Oh, that’s okay.”

“I voted for you,” Bucky says. “I made sure everyone voted for you.”

Steve laughs at that.

“I...didn’t,” he says.

Bucky stops and stares.

“What?”

“I didn’t vote for myself,” Steve smiles at him. “I voted for T’Challa actually.”

“Wait, really?” Bucky blinks.

“Yeah,” Steve says. He sighs, his shoulders slumping a little. “Honestly, it’s a relief, to not have to think about being class president. I don’t have the people skills for it. I want to focus on my art. And T’Challa--I mean look at him. He’s smart and charismatic. He’s a really good leader. And this campus needs...someone who isn’t another white man.”

“Even if he is a small, asthmatic, queer white man?” Bucky quirks a smile.

Steve laughs at that.

“Yeah,” he says. “Even if he is all of those things. It’s time for a change and I think...T’challa’s the best person to do that. I’m excited for him.”

Bucky nods swallowing. He looks...well, if not happy, then lighter.

“Thanks,” he says. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

“Me too,” Steve says.

Bucky nods and the silence grows between them. It’s not...tense, per se. It’s a little thick, a little loaded, maybe a little sad.

Steve doesn’t know how to break it. He doesn’t know if he wants to.

“Well,” Bucky says. “I guess I should go.”

“Sam’s bringing you ice,” he says.

“Oh, that’s okay,” Bucky says. He gets up. “I can put frozen peas on it or something. Tell him...I say thanks though.”

Steve nods and gets up too.

They stand mirroring one another, neither willing to move, or, maybe, neither able to.

“Bucky,” Steve says and Bucky looks up.

“Yeah?”

Steve thinks about it, saying he’s forgiven. He even opens his mouth, thinking about how Bucky had come to save him, how he had found him, seen Rumlow, and just punched him. Bucky, who’s apologized to him so many times now there’s no room for doubt that he’s genuinely, truly, sorry.

Steve thinks about it.

And then he thinks about how he had felt, humiliated, almost debased, the poor kid surrounded by jeering rich kids, the butt of a joke he didn’t know he was in. Even if he forgives that, it doesn’t change anything. Bucky Barnes is one person and he’s another. There’s no world in which Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are similar enough to be together. They’re not from different worlds, they’re from different universes.

“Good luck,” Steve says, swallowing. “On the semifinals. I hope you guys win.”

Bucky--well, his expression is carefully trained. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Thanks, Steve,” Bucky says quietly. “I appreciate it.”

  
The school year winds down rapidly after that. Steve readies himself for his final art show while Sam and the soccer team prepare for semifinals. Sam tells Steve about the team they’re up against--Stanford and how they’ve won the Championship three years running. SHIELD has had a phenomenal season, but everyone expects them to crash out to the reigning champions. The game is being played in Princeton, New Jersey of all places, so Steve wishes Sam all of the luck in the world, tells him he can’t wait to hear they crushed Stanford so he can pretend to know sportsball at the final.

Steve runs into Bucky every once in a while on campus, between classes, or coming back from Pym’s when Bucky’s going to practice, or in the library when Steve is working and Bucky is studying. It’s not tense, but it’s not familiar either. The gap between them is large, cavernous. Sometimes Steve thinks he wants to cross it and other times he’s too afraid to.

Maybe Bucky’s moved on. Maybe Steve’s still mad at him.

Rumlow gets handed an in-school suspension and kicked off the soccer team.

“He was the most physical defender, but not the best one,” Sam says grimly when he tells Steve. “We’ll survive without him. We’re a better team without him.”

“Good luck, Sam,” Steve says the night before the semifinals. “If you don’t beat them I’m not letting you back in the apartment, so there’s a lot riding on you here.”

Sam snorts.

“I packed you a protein bar,” Steve says, smiling. “Just in case.”

Sam goes off to Princeton with the team and Steve stays behind, finishes Blue Melancholia and Untitled Yellow. Gives it a name.

Gets ready for his art show.

  
Steve’s art show is on the same Saturday as the semifinal, as it so happens. The game is during the day and Steve is too busy helping Professor Erskine and the rest of his art studio prepare the gallery to check on the score. They’re kept busy hanging pieces, correcting labels, making sure everything is in order for the event.

Loki helps Steve hang up his pieces, one next to an America Chavez landscape--it’s the desert with barbed wire, the American flag in black and white, with written print _HOME OF THE BRAVE LAND OF THE INCARCERATED_ \--and the other next to a Jessica Jones original, which is some kind of modern art piece that involved her ripping out a piece of exposed brick wall.

“Not bad, Rogers,” Loki says and it’s the nicest thing Loki’s ever said to him.

Steve shakes his head, but is a little in awe as he steps back and sees Blue Melancholia hanging there. He knows, now, whose eyes those are, staring out at him from a sea of swirling blacks, whites, and blues. The eyes are sad, but proud. He feels both lost and anchored by the piece.

“I think I like the yellow one even more, actually,” Loki says, taking a step back and looking at Steve’s piece. “There is something less devastating about it. What is it called?”

Steve just smiles.

“You’ll find out tonight.”

  
The art gallery opens around 7 and there’s not an insignificant number of people milling about in their evening’s finest. Steve recognizes his classmates, but he also sees professors, parents, and members of the art community.

Steve’s in dark jeans with a soft blue shirt and a black blazer over it. He’s wearing his glasses and has his hair swept back. Maybe he should get an earring like Loki, he thinks briefly, and files it away to think about later.

Steve walks around, looking at the other pieces, picking up hors d'oeuvres, smiling and actually chatting with people. He’s stopped in front of a portrait he painted at the beginning of the year when he hears a voice behind him.

“Steve Rogers, did you paint me?”

Steve turns around, a smile breaking across his face.

“You were there when I painted it,” he says laughing and finds himself in an arm of Peggy Carter.

“Strange, I’m muse for so many I must have forgotten,” she says airily. She presses a kiss to Steve’s cheek and pulls back.

“I bet,” Steve grins.

Next to Peggy is a tall, leggy brunette. She has her hair pulled back in a ponytail and is wearing a teal dress that looks like it belongs in a 1950s diner.

“Angie,” Steve says.

“That’s my name,” Angie agrees with a charming smile. “Peggy keeps telling me everything about you, Steve Rogers.”

“Only bad things, I bet,” Steve says giving Peggy a mock-glare.

“Oh, you know it,” Angie says. “He’s so sweet, he’s so charming, he’s the best artist I’ve ever met. Gag me with a spoon, how can you be so mean?”

“You two are hilarious,” Peggy says dryly. She takes Angie’s arm and looks happy. “Steve, we’ve only seen a few of your pieces, but they shine in this gallery. I’m not just saying that because I got a free kiss out of you. They are knock outs.”

Steve laughs, coloring a little.

“Thanks, Pegs,” he says. “Look around some more and then tell me your revised opinion. America’s stuff in particular is just--unbelievable.”

Peggy gives Steve another kiss on the cheek before pulling Angie away, down one of the hallways.

Steve lets out a breath, feeling warm and happy. He takes a glass of champagne when it’s next offered to him.

“Mr. Rogers,” a familiar, welcome voice comes from next to him.

Steve turns to standing in front of Formerly Untitled Yellow.

“Professor,” Steve says grinning broadly. “This is quite the show.”

“It does seem to be rather popular, eh?” Professor Erskine winks. “Strange, I only told my colleagues that this was the most gifted class of artists I’ve worked with in years.”

“I bet you say that about all your classes,” Steve says and Erskine winks again.

Erskine settles in front of the yellow painting, studying it quietly, a smile on his face.

When he finally turns to Steve, his eyes seem a little moist.

“This is the best piece I have ever had a student submit, Mr. Rogers,” Erskine says. “It isn’t simply the techniques, it’s the story here. You tell your story and let the viewer read their own into it. It isn’t one feeling, it’s layered emotion. It is--superb.”

Steve doesn’t know how to react to that, so he nods, staring at the champagne in his hand. His chest feels tight and sticky.

“Whatever’s caused this change in you, Mr. Rogers. Whatever has happened to open you like this, make sure to hold onto it. This is who you are. This is the artist you can truly be.”

Professor Erskine grows a little serious.

“Continue like this,” Professor Erskine says. “And I would be honored to recommend you to the highest programs I know. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, perhaps?”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. He flails a little, at a loss for words. He looks down at his hands and then back up at Professor Erskine, feeling the rare glow of pride in himself.

“Thank you, Professor,” he says.

Professor Erskine puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder and squeezes.

“No, Mr. Rogers,” he says. “Thank you.”

  
The rest of the show proceeds with a kind of lightheartedness that Steve didn’t know he was allowed to feel. He finds Peggy and Angie and looks at pieces with them. America drags him away to meet her family. Thor even finds him and thanks him for putting up with his brother, to which Loki simply glowers and pinches his side.

People come up to Steve to ask about his pieces, to compliment them, to let him know that they looked at them and they made them _feel_ things.

It isn’t until he feels a familiar tap on his shoulder, though, that he feels the happiness take entirely over his face.

“ _We did it!_ ” Sam nearly whoops and grabs Steve in what amounts to a bear hug. “We did it! We’re in! The finals, baby! We’re coming!”

Steve doesn’t scream, but he nearly does and he and Sam jump around, arm-in-arm, ignoring the weird looks they’re getting.

“Oh my god!” Steve splutters in excitement. “Sam! _Sam!_ ”

“Fuck yeah!” Sam says. “Took us to fucking penalties, but unluckily for them, we got an M’Baku in goal!”

“Ahhhh!” Steve exclaims. “Ahh!”

“Agreed!” Sam says.

They stops shouting and jumping and stand around grinning.

“God, look at this place, Rogers,” Sam says looking around. “You fucking legend.”

“It’s a class art show, Sam,” Steve says, blushing. “It’s all of our pieces.”

“Whatever,” Sam says. “Show me this art I’ve had to suffer through all year.”

Steve laughs and feels as though he could float away.

“Mind if we look too?” a low, throaty voice asks.

Steve turns to see Natasha in a gorgeous green dress, Clint in his varsity jacket next to her.

“Nat!” Steve says and smiles as she brings him in for a hug and a kiss.

“Steve,” Natasha says. “You look good.”

“Thanks, so do you,” he says.

Steve doesn’t realize his eyes are flickering up and around until Natasha squeezes his shoulder.

“He’s here somewhere,” she says.

“Oh,” Steve says.

He feels something like butterflies near his sternum.

“Come on,” Natasha says. “Show us this art we’ve heard so much about.”

Steve nods, but can’t ignore the thumping in his chest. Every time he looks around and sees a head of brown hair he thinks maybe--maybe it’s him. It doesn’t escape his notice that he wants to see him and it doesn’t escape Natasha either.

“Are you ready to forgive him yet?” she asks Steve once they’re standing in front of Blue Melancholia.

Steve looks into his mother’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” he says.

Natasha sighs and shifts.

“Maybe this will help,” she says quietly and presses something to Steve’s hand.

“Nat, what--?” Steve looks confused before reading the notebook she’s handed him.

_The Writings of Bucky Barnes, As Encouraged by Steve Rogers, Punk._

“I know he hurt you, Steve,” Natasha says. “But now you’re hurting him. And I don’t think either of you want that.”

Steve shakes his head, not to disagree with her, but because he doesn’t know how else to express this feeling he’s choking on. This mild, absolute disconsolation.

Natasha cups Steve’s face in one hand.

“Read his stories,” she says. “They’re almost as good as your yellow painting.”

Natasha Romanoff has the uncanny ability to understand everything while being told nothing. She leans forward and presses a kiss to Steve’s cheek before turning away to find Clint.

Steve stands there, clutching Bucky’s writing journal.

 _Whatever’s caused this change in you, Mr. Rogers_ , Professor Erskine had said. _Whatever has happened to open you like this, make sure to hold onto it._

Steve closes his eyes, breathing in through his nose.

When he opens them, he expects Bucky to be standing there, in front of him.

But he’s not.

* * * *

Bucky tucks himself into the corners of the gallery, making sure to keep invisible. He wants to see Steve, wants to support his work. But he knows Steve doesn’t want to see him. He knows he deserves that.

But even if Steve never wants to speak to him again, Bucky still loves him. So he’ll show up here, at his art show, after a long day of semifinals, wearing a dark jacket and a baseball cap.

He goes around the room, looking at the pieces, but he knows the ones he likes best.

He knows the ones that touch his heart the most.

Bucky stands in front of the yellow painting, staring. Pining, really, even though Natasha has told him so many times that it isn’t a good look.

“What does it mean?” Loki’s voice appears at his shoulder.

“What?” Bucky mutters.

“The title, idiot,” Loki says. He gestures at the little title card next to it. “I do not understand how it matches at all.”

Bucky frowns and leans closer to read it.

At first he thinks he hasn’t read it properly. He blinks and reads it again.

Then, suddenly, he laughs.

“That fucking _punk_ ,” Bucky says loudly.

Loki raises an eyebrow at him, but Bucky just shakes his head. He sticks his hands into his pockets and walks away, a small smile on his face.

> **Steven G. Rogers  
>  ** _Entitled, Spoiled Brat (with a heart of gold), 2018  
>  _ Acrylic on canvas

* * * *

The day of the final dawns crisp and clear. It’s a day for victories, Bucky hopes.

His hand shakes as he puts his phone away. They’re about to board the team bus on their way to Chester, Pennsylvania, which hosts the Championship final with some frequency.

“ _I’ll meet you there_ ,” Becca had said. “ _Mom and Dad are both coming! They wanted to surprise you, but I wanted to be sure you didn’t have a meltdown in the middle of the field_.”

He doesn’t tell his baby sister enough that he would lose it without her.

“You okay?” Sam asks, hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky shakes his head, the nerves getting the best of him.

“Do not worry, Barnes,” comes T’Challa’s steady voice behind him. “We have earned this. HYDRA are cheaters and cheaters must never win.”

Bucky doesn’t know if it’s the game or if his father’s presence or if it’s everything, as though this game is the culmination of everything bad and everything good in his life, or at least the past year, but he doesn’t feel the confidence that T’Challa feels.

“You are a good co-captain, Bucky,” T’Challa says and he too claps his hand onto Bucky’s shoulder. “It has been an honor to lead this team with you.”

Bucky doesn’t know if that’s true, but he does know that he appreciates it.

He tries to rally.

He nods at T’Challa.

“Let’s go kick some Serpent ass.”

* * * *

There are shuttles taking students from SHIELD to Talen Energy Stadium.

For a moment, Steve’s uncertain. He hesitates, foot hovering above the steps to the bus.

“Steve?” Peggy asks. “Are you sure about this?”

Steve snaps out of it.

“Yeah,” he says smoothly. “For Sam.”

He gets on the bus and spends the entire ride to Pennsylvania listening to a podcast on modern literature. The episode is about the Lord of the Rings.

* * * *

Bucky isn’t going to have an anxiety attack, he thinks, but he is very, very nervous.

The team gets off at the stadium and has an hour to stretch their legs and get their brains in order before they have to head to the locker room to change and start warming up.

The weather is brilliant and cool, just enough to nip at his skin, but not cold enough to freeze him. It seeps into his lungs, wakes him up and calms him down. The sun licks up his arms, warming him.

Bucky dumps his gear off in the locker room and decides he needs to take a walk around the stadium before everything happens.

He starts his circuit, his brain a mess, his hands shaking.

God, the final. Everything he’s been working toward the entire year. If he doesn’t do this, if he doesn’t help lead the team to victory--well, what was it all for?

Who can he say he is, if he can’t at least give his team this?

He wishes he had a cigarette.

Wait, he doesn’t even smoke. Fuck.

“Big brother, if you think any harder, your head is going to roll off your shoulders.”

The words hit his ears a moment after the tone of the voice does. Bucky whirls on his feet and suddenly his tension evaporates, just every bit of his anxiety melts away.

“ _Becca_ ,” he breathes out and she launches herself into his arms.

“God, Bucky, I’ve missed you!” she says as he enfolds her in the big brotheriest hug a big brother can give his baby sister. “And your stupid face and your stupid overthinking. Look at you! You’re about to fall over from a _thought spiral_. Who does that! You’re so lame!”

Bucky’s so relieved and happy to see Becca that he doesn’t even protest. That much.

“Hey!” he manages, but Becca’s laughing and kissing his cheek and ruffling his hair.

“It’s okay,” Becca winks. “It’ll be our secret.”

“What secret?” a deep voice comes out of nowhere. “Are you keeping secrets from us now?”

“Only constantly,” Becca rolls her eyes.

Bucky pulls away from her with a slight twist to his stomach.

“Hi Dad,” Bucky says. He gives him a slightly strained smile. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course,” George says. He gives Bucky a firm hug, complete with a classic George Barnes thump on the back. “In what world would I miss my firstborn bringing pride to his family?”

“Is that a dig at me?” Becca asks and George just winks. “ _Rude_.”

“Maybe stop skipping your classes and getting caught, dear,” Bucky’s mother says from the side.

“Ma,” Bucky smiles, much wider this time.

Winifred wraps her arms around Bucky, squeezes his entire torso, and gives him a kiss on the top of his head.

“James, we’re so proud,” she says. “No matter what happens today, we have never been prouder.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Becca says airily. “The day he got potty trained was great too. How old was he? Seven? Eight?”

“Rebecca,” Winifred warns and Bucky flips her off. “James!”

“Where did these animals come from, Fred?” George chuckles. “Your side of the family, undoubtedly.”

Winifred smacks George’s arm and George roars heartily.

“He’s in a good mood,” Bucky takes the time to mutter to Becca.

“I think our parents are having the sex,” Becca whispers back conspiratorially.

“ _Ew Becca_ ,” Bucky’s face crumples immediately.

“What are you two devils whispering about over there?” George asks.

“Nothing, daddy,” Becca’s face is angelic and completely gives away that they’ve been whispering about their parents.

“Uh huh,” Winifred says, eyebrow raised.

“Son,” George says as Winifred and Becca start to squabble their patent Winifred And Becca Barnes Squabble. “Come here for a second. I want to talk to you.”

Something in Bucky flashes out bright red. _Alert! Alert!_ It seems to say.

“Dad, I gotta go back soon…” he tries to say but George has a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and is steering him from his mother and sister.

“This won’t take long,” George says.

Bucky tries to look back at Becca for support, but she’s too busy taking part in a typical mother-daughter relationship.

“I’m proud of you, son,” George says as they walk. “You’ve proven yourself this year. You took charge of the soccer team and they’re in the finals. Your grades are near perfect. I had a call recently to Carol Danvers and she could not stop raving about your thesis paper.”

Bucky suddenly stumbles.

“Professor Danvers?” he asks. “You know her?”

“Of course,” George says, as though there could not be a more obvious thing.

“What? How?”

“James,” George says, raising an eyebrow. “Do you not think I keep tabs on you and Becca? I’ve had individual conversations with all of your teachers since you were kids.”

Bucky feels not good. He feels distinctly not good.

“But I’m--I’m in college, Dad,” he says. “You can’t. All of them?”

“I have to know how my children are doing,” George says. “If you were in danger of failing, I would have to step in, wouldn’t i?”

“What?” Bucky says, stopping and staring at him. “ _What_?”

George frowns.

“I’m your father,” he says, puzzled. “What did you think I did?”

“I--you’re--” Bucky can feel his heart start to accelerate. That familiar clamminess in his palms. “When? How?”

“I call after I see your course selection,” George says. “You’re not getting favorable treatment if that’s what you’re worried about. I simply have...conversations with your professors. On behalf of the Barnes family.”

There’s something sounding in Bucky’s ears. A familiar, high-pitched, tinny sound.

“I’ve never needed to really intervene with you,” George goes on. “Becca on the other hand--don’t get me started. But that’s not the point. The point is that you have proven yourself time and time again. You’ve attended the happy hours I’ve scheduled for you, the interviews. Every Dean you’ve met with has come away utterly charmed. My boy.”

George looks at Bucky, sickeningly proud, and all Bucky wants to do is hurl. He thinks his knees are going to give out under him.

“I’ve scheduled your LSAT date,” George says. “Honestly, I think an application is just a formality at this point. We can get you in anywhere you want, James. You never told me what your decision was. Harvard? Columbia? Yale? Tell me and it’s yours.”

Bucky’s head starts spinning.

Not only is his future being decided for him, but it turns out his past had been decided for him too. Every step of the way, every time Bucky had thought he had made a decision for himself or he had earned something for himself--it had been a lie. It had all been _lies_. Everything he had done, everything he had touched was tainted by George Barnes.

Bucky can see it stretched before him, endless and dizzying.

His future--no, not his future. George Barnes’s future.

Bucky Barnes, Lawyer. Bucky Barnes, Supreme Court Clerk, Bucky Barnes, State Senator.

It’s a good future. A great one, even.

But it’s not _his_.

“That’s only in the United States of course,” George is still talking, unaware of Bucky standing next to him, utterly, eerily still. His voice comes, almost distorted, like through glass or waves in the water.  “We could think about Oxford. Or even Cambridge. Would you like that?”

Bucky can feel it all crashing down around him, brick and mortar, large, heavy, jagged pieces of his present, of his past, of his future.

He can feel his anxiety threaten to crest, the panic overwhelming him.

 _Just breathe_ , he hears Becca’s voice.

He tries and he can’t.

I can’t, he thinks. I can’t. I can’t.

 _Bucky,_ a new voice says. _You don’t have to keep belittling yourself. It’s good to know you’re privileged, but it’s okay to say you’re unhappy about what you have to do. Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you’re automatically happy._

I’m not happy, Bucky thinks. I’m _not_ happy.

 _Then, what do you want?_ the voice asks. A familiar voice. A voice that grounds him. A voice that he misses so, very, fucking much. _What do you want, Buck?_

And a last voice, not as welcome, but saying what he needs to hear.

 _Tell your father you do not want to go to law school_. _Grow a backbone, Barnes._

“No,” Bucky says out loud. And then, louder, “ _No!_ ”

George freezes, seemingly finally aware that his son has stopped listening to him.

“What did you say?”

“No,” Bucky says. He feels slightly hysterical. “No, I’m not going to go to Harvard, Dad. I’m not going to go to Columbia or Oxford or Georgetown. I’m not going to any of them.”

“Well then?” George asks impatiently. “Where?”

“ _Nowhere_ ,” Bucky says loudly. “I’m not going to law school!”

He doesn’t think he says it loudly, but it sure seems to ring across the air between them. Once said out loud, Bucky can’t take them back. What’s more, he doesn’t _want_ to take them back.

“Excuse me?” George looks stunned.

“I’m not,” Bucky says. He sounds giddy now. A smile breaks across his face. “I’m not going to law school, Dad. I’m sorry. But I don’t want to and I’m not going to.”

A few feet away from them, both Becca and Winifred have frozen, watching the two of them.

“What are you talking about, James?” George says, annoyed. “We have been working for this. What is this nonsense now?”

“No, Dad,” Bucky says. “You’ve been working toward this--I--listen. You and Mom are the most important people in my life. I will always look up to you and admire you. I will always appreciate the roads you paved for me and for Becca. You are the light of our lives. But just because you want something for me doesn’t mean I want that for myself. You’ve never asked me what _I_ wanted.”

He takes a breath.

“I’m glad you and Mom loved law school. I’m glad you’re the lawyers you are and that you genuinely, truly, love what you do. That’s-- _that’s_ inspiring to me. I want that for me too. I want to love something the way that you and Mom love the law.”

Bucky’s nearly shaking again, but for good reasons this time. It feels good to get this off his chest. To finally say it out loud.

“For me, that’s not law,” Bucky says softly and looks at his father. “I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s politics. Maybe it’s soccer. Maybe it’s creative writing, I don’t know. But it’s not this path you want me to go down. I’m sorry for that. I hope...I hope you can love me despite it.”

The silence hangs between them, pregnant and unbroken. Bucky can hear his breathing in his ears, harsh, like he’s run a marathon. Becca’s somehow appeared by his side, her hand on his elbow. She squeezes it encouragingly and he thinks he can hear her in his head. _You did good, Buck. You did real good._

“I--I have to go,” Bucky says when no one says anything. “Warm up’s going to start and I have to be there for the team. I’m sorry. I’ll catch you guys later.”

Bucky turns and jogs away from them, his heart pounding in his ears. He doesn’t know if his nerves are any better, doesn’t know if he just jettisoned his future, his family. He might have just done the stupidest thing he has ever done, in his life.

But he did it.

He finally did it.

And that, for Bucky, means something.

* * * *

Steve doesn’t know about this. It’s not even his game and he’s nervous, although he can’t say if it’s because of the game itself or because of--

“Ooh, the team is already out,” Peggy says. “Do you see Sam?”

The great thing about a team as diverse as SHIELD’s is that Steve can’t squint out at the players and say, for certain, that the black player is Sam Wilson. He thinks he sees him warming up near the opposite net though.

“Oh, Steve, come on,” Peggy says and pulls him down through the stands.

Steve sees Natasha at the same time she sees him.

“Hey,” the redhead says. “Come and sit with me.”

He looks at Peggy, who nods. He slips into the benches, goes past a random couple, and settles in next to Natasha. Peggy and Angie sit on the other side.

“This is close,” Steve says. They’re only a few rows behind the team bench.

“Came early with the team,” Natasha shrugs. “Hazards of being a best friend.”

“Am I a bad one?” Steve scratches his nose.

“Your best friend probably isn’t a human disaster,” Natasha says.

“The jury’s out on that,” Steve says with a smile. He watches the team warm up, running laps and playing monkey in the middle. “How is he?”

“I’m not your owl,” Natasha says. “Ask him yourself.”

Which is fair, if not the answer he wishes she’d give him. Steve tries to focus on the rest of the field, on Sam, on T’Challa, even on M’Baku. But no matter how hard he tries, his eyes keep drifting back to Bucky. Bucky with the captain’s band around his arm.

Bucky whose hair is flopping with the breeze.

Bucky who looks so stiff, so out-of-sorts that he keeps missing balls that his teammates are passing to him. Sam stops at some point and draws him closer, puts their heads together to say something to him.

Steve wishes he could help. Then he looks down at his hands and thinks he’s lost all rights to that.

 _You’re from different planets_ , he reminds himself. _It wouldn’t work anyway._

“It’s starting!” Peggy says and leans forward.

 _You’re here for Sam_ , Steve reminds himself again as the crowd stands with a cheer, to welcome the teams.

Steve cheers along with the rest of them, but still, he can’t seem to stop seeking out floppy brown hair and the curve of familiar lips.

  
Steve has been to two soccer games, total, ever, and he thinks he forgets every time how fun they can be. He’s tense at first, watching Bucky and not watching Bucky and feeling miserable about doing both, but then Peggy shoves him and something happens on the field and everyone is up, screaming at the ref and he finds himself swept away by it.

SHIELD looks a little shaky from the beginning, losing the ball almost immediately. HYDRA, led by a bunch of goon-looking assholes who are 30 if they’re a day, press them hard, playing dirty every time the ref isn’t looking. Some bald guy by the name of Von Strucker tackles T’Challa early on, nearly taking off his ankle.

Everyone in the crowd screams _foul!_ But the referee doesn’t seem to notice.

Then some other dude definitely uses his hand to stop the ball, but again, the referee is silent.

“Come on!” Angie screams next to Peggy. “Do you have eyes! Ref! What the fuck!”

Every time someone on SHIELD manages to get the ball, someone on HYDRA goes down. They don’t even get touched and they go down.

“Are they supposed to be doing that?” he asks Natasha.

Natasha, who is the silent furious type, shakes her head.

“Motherfuckers,” she growls. “Actual pieces of shit.”

Diving is what it’s called apparently and Steve couldn’t think of a better term. They look like they’re dead fish flopping around on dry land.

It’s around the 25th minute when it happens.

Some toad looking asshole breaks free of SHIELD’s defense once Von Strucker body slams Clint out of the way. The toad--some guy named Sitwell--moves past Bucky, shoulder checks Luke Cage, and nutmegs Sam to shoot one into the corner.

M’Baku extends his arms, but it’s too high.

The ball slams in.

The SHIELD side of the stadium groans while the HYDRA side cheers raucously.

“Fuck,” Peggy says. “This is bad.”

“We have time still,” Angie says. “If this ref would _do his job!_ ”

Steve watches the rest of the half unfold with a bit of a knot in his stomach. Everything seems to go wrong for SHIELD. T’Challa keeps losing the ball and M’Baku throws balls out only for it to go straight to a HYDRA player. Clint can’t seem to stay on his feet and Bucky--ugh, well every time Bucky shoots the ball it goes so wide it might as well be in another sport altogether.

The SHIELD crowd groans.

Then it starts going silent.

At the 42nd minute mark, three minutes from half-time, Von Strucker barrels past Bucky to make one into the corner.

2-0 to HYDRA.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve can see Bucky say in frustration. He punches the air, disheartened. “ _Fuck!_ ”

Steve is--he’s so invested now he can’t think. He knows how much this means to Bucky. He knows how long he’s been training for this, how he’s poured his heart and soul into this team. Bucky could have been student body president easily, but he had said no, had taken one for the team, literally.

Bucky loves this team. Everything Bucky loves, he puts his whole heart and soul into.

Bucky had fucked up, but he hadn’t been lying. What they had had was real.

Bucky Barnes had put his heart and soul into Steve Rogers and the least Steve could do was now, when Bucky was at his shakiest and his worst, be there for him.

So Steve gets to his feet, jumps up and down, and starts waving his hands.

“ _Bucky_!” he screams. “ _Bucky Barnes!_ ”

People looks at him. A _lot_ of people look at him.

Peggy looks up at him, delighted. Natasha looks up at him, amused.

Steve ignores all of them. He just gathers all of his air into his lungs and _bellows._

“ _Bucky Barnes, you pay attention to me!_ ”

Suddenly, Bucky seems to hear him. He looks up from the game play, looks up to see Steve there, waving his arms and shouting. His face--his entire fucking, goddamn face, lights up.

“ _Put the ball into their net!_ ” Steve screams. “ _Even I know that’s how you play this dumb sport!_ ”

Everyone around him laughs loudly. Even Natasha’s mouth twitches.

On the field Bucky shakes his head to indicate he can’t answer him back. But he gives Steve a thumbs up and mouths “ _Okay_.”

Steve grins and gives him a thumbs up back.

Bucky shakes his hand and grins back, then goes back after the ball. He looks lighter than he did before.

  
They disappear into the tunnel for fifteen minutes, during which time Natasha gives Steve A Look.

“You’re real dramatic, Rogers,” she says. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Steve says innocently.

“Uh huh,” Natasha says before turning back to the field. She starts off a stream of Russian that Steve can’t understand but that he’s pretty sure is commentary on how many idiots she’s surrounded by on a daily basis.

  
When SHIELD comes back onto the field, Bucky immediately looks up at the crowd again. Steve’s small and not particularly easy to spot, but Bucky manages to do so. It’s like he’s memorized exactly where Steve is so he can be sure to not miss him when he needs him.

Steve taps out a rhythm on his knee, leans forward to watch the game with no little anxiety.

“We have plenty of time,” Peggy is saying next to him. “They can still do this.”

It’s like night and day with SHIELD. When they start playing again, it’s immediately faster, more cohesive. T’Challa starts out with the ball and passes it to Bucky who passes it to Sam who weaves through HYDRA’s defense and gets it to Clint’s feet. It’s a shot on target within the first minute of the match that has the SHIELD side of the stadium up on their feet, cheering. Clint’s shot gets saved by the HYDRA goalkeeper, but it’s the burst of energy they need, the momentum that they had lacked the first half.

Steve is on his feet too, screaming and shouting, clinging to Peggy and, once, even clutching Natasha.

Natasha only allows it because she’s screaming in Russian.

They’re all buzzed on the feverish energy of the crowd, adrenaline that goes straight to their limbs. T’Challa tries a shot and it goes wide. The crowd screams and then groans.

Angie is cursing and gesturing at the ref, “ _Eyes, ref! Use ‘em!_ ”

Steve is about to hold Natasha back from throwing herself onto the field when Steve feels a droplet on his face. He looks up at the sky and blinks. He hadn’t noticed the clouds rolling in, but they are now, thick and heavy.

Steve feels another droplet on his face.

And then all hell breaks loose.

  
More accurately, some fucker by the name of Johann Schmidt kicks Bucky while he’s in the box. Bucky goes down, clutching his ankle and Fury has to call for the medics to rush onto the field. Steve’s heart is in his throat as he watches, he’s screaming, although he has no recollection of when he started. This time, Natasha has to hold _him_ back as the medics check Bucky.

It’s the tensest two minutes of Steve’s life.

Eventually, the medics retreat and Bucky hobbles up to his feet.

Steve hears the blast of a whistle and everyone in the stadium cheers, although whether it’s angry or happy he couldn’t say.

“Penalty!” Peggy and Angie scream. “That’s right, you fuckers!”

Clint takes up to the box to take the penalty.

Natasha’s nails dig so deeply into Steve’s thin arms that he thinks the half-crescents might just be embedded into his skin now.

“If you miss this, I’ll murder you, Barton,” Natasha growls.

She doesn’t have to worry because Clint Barton, for all of his ridiculous faults and overly comical attitude, like he was raised in a goddamned circus, is cool as a cucumber taking a high-pressure penalty in the biggest game of the season.

It soars in smoothly, missing the goalkeeper’s face by half a foot.

It’s SHIELD 1 - HYDRA 2.

Steve thinks he’s going deaf everyone is screaming so loudly in his ears. He’s screaming loudly too.

The rain does not seem to want to miss the festivities because two minutes later, just as T’Challa cuts past Sitwell, the heavens open up.

  
It’s the 80th minute and the score is SHIELD 2 - HYDRA 2 thanks to the Clint penalty and an absolutely unreal scissor kick by Sam that no one really thought would go in and which went in much to everyone’s pure shock and anyway Steve definitely doesn’t have a voice anymore.

The rain is coming down pretty hard now, there are puddles on the field, everyone is slipping everywhere. Steve is cold and wet and is distantly thankful that he wore his contacts, not his glasses today. The teams are exhausted, but no one is calling time.

In the world of soccer, the battle must always go on.

The 80th minute passes and then the 81st. The 82nd. The 83rd. Both teams are caught in a slip and slide deadlock. The ball gets hoofed to one end, someone does a pretty turn, and passes it back down to the other end. It ends up in the midfield, lost. No one gets near the net.

Steve’s anxiety is at an all-time high. He’s moved past chewing on his fingernails and is now just chewing on his shirt sleeve.

“Come on, come on,” he mutters to himself, watching the ball ping pong back and forth across the field.

Every time a SHIELD player has the ball, his entire chest lurches. He’s never felt like this before. He’s going to die of the adrenaline rush. He hates sports. God, he hates sports with his _entire life_.

He’s about to die of sport when, suddenly, in the 87th minute it happens.

He’s not sure how it happens or when it happens, he just knows it does.

Jasper Sitwell falls on his ass and Sam is there. He takes the ball and starts running.

He weaves past Schmidt, nutmegs Von Strucker. He almost runs into some dick named Fisk, but he passes it sideways at the last second. Clint turns it around, slides it over to T’Challa who is, miraculously, unguarded.

He looks up and sees who’s free.

He shouts and kicks the ball.

Steve watches its perfect arc. It soars up and down, right to Bucky’s head.

Bucky heads it up and controls its fall with his foot. Then, heart thumping in Steve’s ears, he watches as Bucky cuts down the side.

He’s fast. He’s so fucking fast.

None of the HYDRA assholes can catch up to him. He cuts past all of them easily, so easily. Steve is going to fall out of his seat, his heart is beating so fast.

“Come on!” he yells. “Bucky! Shoot! _Shoot!_ ”

Almost as though Bucky hears him--even though he clearly cannot--Bucky does it.

Bucky fucking Barnes shoots.

* * * *

It doesn’t register to him, in the middle of the rain. The whistle blasts, two short, sweet times and everyone is _shouting_ , jerseys up and off heads, people yelling, people singing, everyone dancing around.

It’s the end of the world and the beginning of the world. It’s the best celebration Bucky has ever fucking seen.

Sam throws himself onto the ground, starts sliding through the mud and M’Baku, hilariously, follows him. Luke lifts Clint up onto his shoulders and T’Challa, grinning wildly, appears with the Wakandan flag, drapes it around his shoulders.

Fury is smiling. _Nicholas Fury is smiling_.

Bucky knows what it all means. Bucky can feel it in his blood, in the beat of his heart against his rib cage, the way it spreads through his limbs, down his chest, through to his toes.

He knows they’ve won. He knows they’re the _champions_.

He even knows that he’s the reason for it. That last, magical shot, like someone was guiding his feet. Like someone was whispering into his ear what to do and where and exactly when.

Bucky’s grin is so wide his face threatens to split in half.

Still, he doesn’t care. Not as such.

Bucky looks through the crowd. He knows where he is. He has it memorized.

Someone tries to say something to him and he shakes him off. He catapults himself through his teammates, through the reporters, through the HYDRA players. He slips, he slides, but still he runs.

* * * *

It’s raining and Steve can barely see, his rapidly lengthening blond hair clinging wetly into his eyes. Still, he doesn’t care. Not as such.

“Go,” Peggy says.

Steve doesn’t need to be told twice. He moves past her, moves past Angie, down the row. Everyone gets out of his way quickly. They part as though they know.

Steve doesn’t even know.

He just knows that his heart is beating out of his chest and he’s running down the bleachers and--

* * * *

Bucky jumps over the barrier and just as Steve gets to the bottom, Bucky’s there.

* * * *

Steve looks down at him, brown hair flopping into his eyes too and he--fuck it, fuck all of it, he doesn’t care anymore, he cares too much, he can’t help it, he launches himself at him.

* * * *

Bucky laughs, warm and giddy all over, just catches Steve in his arms and twirls him around like they’re a fucking goddamn college cliché and he doesn’t even care, he doesn’t care about how stupid he looks, or how his reputation is going to be impacted, or what people will say. He doesn’t care if people are watching and he doesn’t care if people aren’t watching. He doesn’t care about a single goddamn thing except wrapping his arms around Steve Rogers and then Steve Rogers is holding Bucky’s face and saying something like “ _I can’t believe I’m going to kiss you in the rain_ ” and Bucky is saying something like “ _I can’t believe it’s taken you this long to kiss me have you seen my hair_ ” and then Steve is saying something like “ _Shut up you are so fucking annoying_ ” and then someone says something, maybe, or maybe no one says anything at all because Steve kisses him, _Steve kisses him_ , and all Bucky cares about is holding him up while he does.

* * * * 

Steve wraps his arms around Bucky’s neck and Bucky’s arms are around his back and they kiss. They kiss in the rain and it strikes through Steve like electricity, like the first rainfall of spring or the first snowfall of winter, like he’s being submerged into the ocean and cresting the tallest summit of the tallest mountain in the world. He feels it run through his chest, sparks at his fingertips, his toes curling from it.

Bucky kisses him and they take a single breath and then he kisses him again.

They kiss like they’re hungry for it, like they’ve never kissed anyone else before and may never kiss anyone else ever again.

They kiss like they’ve been wanting to, for so very long.

When Bucky finally lets Steve’s feet touch the ground again, Steve’s arms still around Bucky’s neck, Bucky bent down a little toward him, Steve can barely feel his legs.

“I guess you’ve forgiven me then?” Bucky murmurs and Steve shuts him up by kissing him again.

 

 

 

 

* * * *

Eventually, Bucky has to breathe because his head is spinning. His chest is tight, his heart full to bursting. He has Steve in his arms and he fits there, perfectly, like he was always meant to. Steve’s forehead rests against his and Bucky’s rests against his and they both breathe out, a little roughly, in tandem, watching one another.

“I love you,” Bucky says. “I _love_ you.”

“Shut up,” Steve says. “I love you too. Asshole.”

They both start laughing at the same time, bright pink and incandescently happy.

“Jesus Christ,” a dry voice interrupts them. “What is this, a high school Netflix movie?”

“We’re in college, Nat,” comes Clint’s voice and then, to everyone’s surprise, he shuts her up by kissing her too.

* * * *

It’s ridiculous. The entire fucking thing is ridiculous.

And Steve has never, ever been happier.

* * * *

Eventually Bucky has to let go of Steve because, as Sam yells at both of them, “ _Sorry to interrupt this CW special, but we have a trophy to lift motherfuckers!_ ”

Bucky kisses Steve one more time, because he can, because finally, _finally_ , he’s earned the right to.

“I love you,” he says again. He can’t seem to stop saying it. He’s like, in love or something. “Wait for me after?”

“Ugh, fine,” Steve says with a grin that takes over his entire fucking cute face. “Go lift your sportsball trophy.”

* * * *

Bucky does. With T’Challa and with Sam and with the MVP of the match--M’Baku, surprisingly! Goalkeepers never get any love, so Bucky is thrilled for his friend.

They count to three and then Bucky and T’Challa lift the trophy into the air. Confetti and streamers pop off everywhere, gold and silver foil joining the rain and plastering to everyone.

The announcer says “ _Your new NCAA College Cup Champions--SHIELD!_ ”

The stadium goes up in a roar.

  
He’s picking gold and silver foil off of himself, Steve helping where he can and distracting where he can, when Bucky sees Becca and his mother and father working their way toward him. He’s jubilant, he’s over-the-moon happy, he’s soul-crushingly, devastatingly in love. He doesn’t care what his father has to say now, he doesn’t. But, at the same time, he does.

“Bucky,” Steve says next to him.

Bucky turns and Steve smiles.

“I’m so proud of you,” he says. “No matter what.”

Steve takes Bucky’s hand and squeezes it, then gets up on his tip toes and kisses his cheek.

“I’m gonna be over there with Sam,” he says. “I’ll be there when you need me.”

Bucky nods, grateful, so very grateful, to have Steve Rogers in his life.

He touches his winner’s medal and lets his family come to him.

“Bucky!” Becca says, wrapping her arms around him as usual. “You were _amazing_. That was _amazing_. The adrenaline! The comeback! God, do I like sports now? Do I have to become a jock? You asshole, give me your medal it’ll look better on me.”

Bucky laughs, a little anxiously, and slides the medal off and puts it over Becca’s head.

“You’re right,” he says. “Looks much better.”

His little sister beams at him. His mother and father step up next to her. Winifred looks nervous too, but is smiling. She’s proud in the way that only mothers can be. Next to her, George is...straight. Stoic, even. Bucky’s stomach lurches despite himself.

“James,” Winifred says. “I’m so proud of you, darling. The game winning goal!”

“Thanks, Ma,” he says. He looks down at his cleats. “It felt good.”

There’s the silence again, awkward and heavy. It settles so thick around him, he can almost feel it, nothing between them except stray sounds drifting through the crowd. Cheers from his teammates, the band still trilling behind. Raindrops against the concrete ground.

Again, Bucky thinks, did I ruin it? Did I ruin my family?

When the silence finally breaks, it’s his mother who does it.

“How long have you felt this way, James?”

Bucky can’t look at her.

“Always,” he says. “I’ve never wanted this. I just...I wanted to make you and Dad proud. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“Oh, James,” Winifred says and suddenly her hands are on Bucky’s face, soft and firm at the same time. “James Buchanan Barnes, you have held this in for far too long. You’ve held it in for longer than you were in the closet. You were six years old when you looked at me and declared, Mom, I like boys and there’s nothing you can do about it. Do you remember that? I think about it every day. You were the bravest little boy I have ever met.”

Bucky shakes his head, his chest a sticky mess, but his mother holds on.

“I’m heartbroken, but only because you thought you couldn’t tell us the truth,” Winifred says. “Why would we be disappointed just because you wanted a path for yourself? Why would we ever stop loving you? You are our baby boy and you make us proud every single day.”

Bucky’s throat is sticky now too, hot with feelings he’s barely swallowing down.

“Yeah, loser,” Becca says quietly and bumps his shoulder. “You’re a tough act to follow. If you could disappoint Mom more, that’d be really great for me.”

“Rebecca,” Winifred admonishes, but it makes Bucky smile, tentatively.

He feels like he’s six years old again, with a horrible, heartbreaking truth and anxiety that it will change everything, forever, for the worse. He hadn’t been really aware of all of the consequences at age six and, luckily, he had never had to think of it again.

But this?

Bucky looks at George, who’s been silent this entire time.

Is his father looking at him with new eyes? Does he hate him now?

“Ahem,” George finally says from his position as resident brick wall. “There’s no...wiggle room on this?”

“Afraid not,” Bucky says. Is he sniffling? He’s not sniffling.

“Because I did pay for _someone’s_ LSAT…” George says and it only takes him a moment longer before breaking into a kind smile. “James, I can’t say that I’m not a little disappointed. I’ve always dreamt of working with my son. The Barnes Men, At Law. But if it’s not what you want, well--I’ll have to learn to accept that. I will accept that.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Becca mutters and Winifred slaps her arm.

“Hush, Rebecca,” she says.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Bucky says, feeling guilty. “I wish I could give you what you wanted. I wish it would...make me happy in the same way.”

“That’s not your responsibility, James,” George says seriously. “It’s not your job to make yourself unhappy in order to make me happy. That’s your mother’s job.”

“Excuse me!” Winifred says, with little heat.

“What I mean to say is--” George sighs and runs a hand over his mustache and beard. “I won’t claim to understand, but that’s my own shortcoming. If you know for sure that you want to do something else, then--I’ll listen. We can talk about it and figure out a new plan.”

Bucky swallows.

“Really?” he asks. “You mean it?

“Of course,” George says. He pulls Bucky into a hug, because apparently everyone in the Barnes Family is an incorrigible hugger. “There’s all sorts of other career paths you can have at our law firm.”

“ _Dad!_ ” Bucky says at the same time Winifred scolds “ _George!_ ”

George starts to laughs and Becca starts to laugh and it really is all so very clear where his little sister gets it from. Winifred and Bucky exchange a wary look.

“I love you, Dad,” Bucky says with a smile, the first warm, carefree smile he thinks he’s worn in a very, very long time. He feels light. Almost lighter than air. “Whatever I choose--I’ll make you proud, I promise.”

“I love you too, son,” George says. “You will make me proud, whatever you do. Provided you do not become a Republican.”

The entire Barnes clan shudders.

“I’m not a sociopath,” Bucky mutters.

He needs a moment to collect himself. He’s been holding onto this fear, this weight, for so long that without it he feels like a different person. He feels lighter, as though he could float away.

Bucky has his whole future ahead of him. A future that’s undecided and unwritten. Sure that’s a bit terrifying, but it’s also thrilling. He can do _whatever_ he wants.

And he maybe has someone to do it with.

Almost as though she’s read his mind, Becca nudges him.

“So, like, are we going to talk about that _kiss_?” she asks. “Because that’s going to be broadcast across like, every social media platform for the next two weeks I _guarantee_ you.”

Bucky flushes.

“Yes, James, who is the nice young man you could not stop tonguing?” George asks.

“ _Dad_!” Bucky says, mortified.

“We’re your parents, dear,” Winifred says. “We know what tonguing is. And sex. Are you being safe? It’s very important to be safe and get tested regularly.”

“ _Mom_!” Bucky doesn’t shriek, but he kind of does. He’s bright red.

“Buck?” Steve has the worst timing of all...time.

Or maybe he saw that Bucky is rapidly turning into a tomato and decided this was the perfect time to come find him. Of course he’d do that, the absolute punk.

“Mom, Dad,” Bucky says and manages a glare. “This is Steve. He’s my--”

He stutters to a stop. He doesn’t want to assume. He and Steve haven’t talked about anything. Steve hasn’t even said he’s forgiven him or what the ground rules are or what he thinks about Bucky or what this means or--

“Boyfriend,” Steve says smoothly. “Of about twenty five minutes.”

“Oh!” Bucky squeaks.

“Oh,” Becca says dreamily. “Young love.”

Steve doesn’t know what he’s done, really, because he’s opened the door for the vultures that are George and Winifred and Rebecca Barnes to descend upon him.

Bucky needn’t have worried, though. Steve has never needed his help, not really. He smiles and answers all of his family’s questions, charms the absolute pants off of them, Bucky can tell.

They look at him and tease him. Laugh at him, even. George doesn’t waste any time inviting Steve out for a celebratory dinner. His mother asks him a dozen questions about his art and the art world. Becca steals his phone number. Steve doesn’t seem the least bit fazed.

It’s like he fits in, immediately. Steve Rogers, a part of the Barnes family.

Bucky shakes his head, watching the antics, but he finds he doesn’t really mind. He can feel Steve’s hand in his and that’s all the strength he really needs.

Bucky squeezes it and Steve, smiling at his father, engaged in some conversation about environmental regulatory policy, squeezes his hand back.

Steve Rogers, Bucky thinks. He’s really all that.


	6. epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this crazy, ridiculously long, thoroughly delightful (to write) rom com romp of college shenanigans and boys who cannot seem to get their shits together! I leave you now with one final, fluff-saturated chapter. You've earned it.

**almost summer break.**

  
It’s the day before his last final and Steve cannot sit still. Not like a metaphor or a hyperbole, but he honest-to-god, legitimately, cannot sit still.

He bounces his leg up and down, first unconsciously, and then, once he realizes he’s doing it unconsciously, very consciously. Then he drums his fingers on the desk, in tune with some KPop song he’s listening to, not that he has any idea what they’re singing about. He rolls his shoulders. He tips his chair back and then forward. Back and then forward. He tilts his chair back and then--

“Holy shit,” Bucky says from his study carrel.

“What?” Steve says. He takes one earbud out of his ear. “What!”

“You’re driving me crazy,” Bucky says. “When was the last time you sat still? Don’t answer that. Come with me.”

Steve blinks rapidly in protest, but Bucky gets up from his desk, grabs Steve by the upper arm and drags him back into the stacks.

  
“This is--very--inappropriate--” Steve says, half-hearted protest muffled into Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky presses him back against the shelves--against some Marxist tomes, as it so happens--his hands under Steve’s shirt. He’s very busy not listening to Steve’s untimely sense of propriety.

He mouths kisses up Steve’s jaw, lingers at the hollow under Steve’s ear, kisses the spot, then teases it with his teeth.

“Buc--hnngh,” Steve manages. His arms are around Bucky’s neck, caught like an anchor bringing Bucky closer.

Bucky snickers and starts working his way down Steve’s throat.

Steve is extremely aware that the SHIELD College Library Stacks is not the most appropriate location to make out with your boyfriend, but he also can’t deny that personally he thinks every location is an appropriate place to make out with your boyfriend when your boyfriend is Bucky Barnes.

“Don’t start--anything you won’t finish-- _pal_ ,” Steve breathes out. He realizes too late his grave mistake.

Bucky pulls back just enough to give Steve the most menacing grin of his life.

“Bucky _no_!” Steve panics.

Bucky tries to go lower on his body, one hand on Steve’s zipper, and Steve uses all of his willpower and very little upper body strength to push against Bucky. Bucky stumbles back until _his_ back is pressed into the opposite bookshelf.

A book or two falls off the shelf. Steve will send his regards to the Marxist-Leninists.

“Steve,” Bucky says, his voice low with need. “Don’t start anything you won’t finish.”

“You are so _fucking_ annoying,” Steve gripes. Then he leans up on his toes. “Make out with me now and I’ll give you something to remember for your final tomorrow.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Bucky complains, but then Steve’s mouth is on his mouth, hot and needy, and Bucky’s breathing into Steve and there’s some tongue and some teeth and anyway, they’ll get back to studying eventually.  
  
Probably.

  
* * * *

Bucky finishes his last final three days before he’s getting kicked out of the frat house for the summer. He hits submit on ExamSoft, closes his laptop, goes to the front of the room to shake hands with the professor, because he’s a goddamned nerd, and then texts Steve, _celebratory make out?????????_

To which Steve replies, _my lips are still chapped from last night, have mercy._

Bucky’s never gotten complaints before about an inappropriate amount of kissing, but ok.

He runs into Steve on the way back to the frat anyway, who shoves a frappuccino into Bucky’s hand and leans up to kiss him.

“Thought your lips were chapped,” Bucky murmurs into the kiss with a smirk.

“They are, asshole, thanks a lot,” Steve gripes.

In the last few weeks, Bucky’s learned these things about Steve Rogers: that he is, in fact, as grumpy in the evenings as he is in the mornings, that he sleeps only on the right side of the bed, that he has an inexplicable addiction to Jordan almonds, that he has a collection of chapstick all over his apartment, that he never has his inhaler where he  _needs_ it, that he also has paint stains _on his sheets_ , that he’s extremely energetic in bed and unsurprisingly bossy, that he’ll complain about how much his mouth hurts, but kiss Bucky anyway.

Bucky learns these things like he’s collecting pieces of treasure, each one tucked safely away into the soft glow of his chest any time he sees Steve or thinks about Steve or is with him.

They had sat down the night after the Championship final, after Bucky had had a chance to catch his breath, and talked and gone over ground rules, which really was mostly _don’t be a raging, lying asshole to me again_. It had been a little talking and a little apologizing and a lot learning about each other and learning each other in this new, terrifying, completely exhilarating change in their relationship.

Bucky still can’t believe it sometimes, that Steve is his boyfriend. That he gets to call him any time he wants and hold his hand any time he wants and kiss him any time he wants. Steve puts up with his theatrics and phone calls with Becca and too many invitations to summer events and dinners with George and Winifred. He tells Bucky when he’s being stupid, encourages him to write when he’s feeling down, and strokes his back when his anxiety is making it hard to breathe. He never makes him feel bad. He always just looks at Bucky, tells him he loves him and that it's going to be all right, and then Bucky takes a breath, and feels like it really might be.

Steve is everything to him. He’s perfect.

He’s also an enormous _brat_.

“Hey,” Steve says, snapping his fingers and Bucky emerges from his own head. He looks down at him and Steve is giving him a soft smile. He leans up and kisses him again. “Congratulations.”

They had held the election that morning.

After the Championship final, after the ridiculous, dramatic, sweeping, rain-soaked kiss--which has gone viral twelve ways to Sunday, thanks very much--after getting Rumlow kicked out of the fraternity, Bucky had swept the fraternity presidential election. It had been unanimous. Thor had told him after that there had never been any real competition. Everyone knew Bucky was the best man for the job.

“You’re dating a frat president,” Bucky smirks.

“Ugh,” Steve says. “Don’t remind me.”

“You’re sleeping with a frat president,” Bucky’s grin widens.

“Stop,” Steve says, pained. “Please stop.”

“You’re in _love_ with--” Bucky starts and Steve covers his mouth with both hands.

“If you finish that sentence I swear to God I will revoke your frap privileges, Barnes.”

Steve glares at him and Bucky grins, kisses Steve’s palm.

Steve lets him go, but not without giving him such a look of suspicion that it’s clear to Bucky he’ll probably never be trusted with speaking again.

To salvage their relationship, Bucky takes a loud sip of his frap and offers Steve his hand. Steve looks at him dubiously, but takes the hand anyway.

They walk through campus like that, hand-in-hand, the air warm and light, but not as light as the feeling across campus. The seniors are getting ready to graduate in a few days and the juniors are getting ready to take their place.

It's exciting. It's peaceful.  
  
“Where’s your studio again?” Steve asks after a while.

“Uh, Fort Greene?” Bucky says. “I think. The fellowship’s in Manhattan though.”

“Oh, cool,” Steve says. “I think I found a closet to live in near Prospect Park. It’s on the fourth floor of a walk up.”

Bucky snickers into his frap. Steve’s only complained to him about three hundred times about the inevitability of the fourth story walk up. Bucky had asked, a single time, if Steve had ever considered maybe, like, _not_ renting a closet of an apartment that’s a fourth story walk up and he’d gotten pinched so hard for his efforts that he’d had a purple bruise on his arm for the next week.

“That’s a bit of a commute, right?” Bucky asks. “To the Met?”

It still bowls Steve over, whenever Bucky mentions his internship. He can tell because Steve will grow a little pink and a lot pleased. He always casts his eyes down, his eyelashes brushing against the top of his cheeks.

Bucky has memorized every look Steve Rogers has given him the past few weeks and he’s hungry to memorize more.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “But it’s not bad. I can read on the train.”

Bucky nods.

He’d wanted to ask Steve, once, if they should share an apartment for the summer since they were both going to be in New York City, but then he’d chickened out at the last minute.

What if Steve gets sick of him? What if he decides he hates that Bucky sometimes mumbles in his sleep or likes to sleep in boxers or sometimes has stress-related nightmares? Thinking about it had nearly caused Bucky to panic, until Becca had yelled at him for being stupid.

He kind of regrets it now, but he thinks this is okay too. Fort Greene isn’t too far from Prospect Park. They can meet in the park or at each other’s apartments. They can have a summer, to themselves, in the greatest city on the planet.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says as they round the bend in the quad.

“What up?” Bucky asks.

He leans close to Steve, drops a kiss on top of the soft pile of his hair just because he wants to. Just because he can.

Steve wrinkles his nose, but his face is pink and happy again.

“The bet,” he says. “What were the terms? What did you end up losing to Tony, anyway?”

Bucky groans at that.

“Ugh,” he says and looks up, as though the bright blue, cloudless sky can help save him. “You’ll see.”

 **  
  
** * * * *

**one year later; graduation.**

  
Put a gun to his head and Bucky couldn’t tell you how the last year flew by. He remembers last summer, dawning all bright and hopeful, and he remembers the school year dawning, all bright and hopeful, and he remembers everything in between, vaguely--the ups, the downs, all of the late nights at Steve’s apartment until Sam got sick of both of them and threatened to kick them out.

There were some bad things--anxiety is a life-long struggle, Bucky Barnes--and some whatever things--why did he sign up to write a 100 page capstone paper in political science anyway?--and some good things--SHIELD winning the Championship again, Bucky performing regularly at the Guardians Art Collective. Of course, there were also the best things--taking Steve to Colorado for skiing during winter break and finally witnessing Natasha admit that she has actual human feelings for someone and going on a spring break cruise with Steve and Natasha and Sam and Clint and beating Tony at chess that one time and Steve crawling into his bed on the coldest of nights and the warmest of nights and Steve, taking his face into his hands, and telling him that he loves him, that he’s so happy they’re together, that the last year has been the best of his life, and that the _motherfucking Metropolitan Museum of Art_ gave him an _art fellowship_.

Okay, so there were a lot of really great, best things. Bucky can’t help it. His life has been a series of really great, best things ever since he met Steve.

He has his graduation gown and cap in his hands and looks in the mirror.

He groans at his reflection just before he hears a familiar laugh and feels a familiar set of arms snake around his waist.

“Is this the last day?” Steve asks, grinning.

“ _Yes_ ,” Bucky says. “I’m _fucking free_.”

They both stare at Bucky’s reflection in the mirror--tall and golden and mostly happy and wearing a motherfucking t-shirt of motherfucking Tony Stark.

 _I won!_ Tony had gloated eventually, after a reasonable amount of time, like, at least a full week after Bucky and Steve had started dating. _I’ve thought of the perfect term for our bet._

It was really the first month of his punishment that Bucky had gotten questions. For a solid month, at least five times a day, someone would ask him why he was wearing a t-shirt with Tony Stark’s face on it. It was a reasonable question, in all fairness.

It hadn’t stopped Bucky from glowering at everyone who got within a ten feet radius of him though.

After the first month, the questions mostly died down. By winter break, everyone was used to Bucky walking around in campus with Tony on his chest.

It was really Steve who never got used to it.

“How can I make out with my boyfriend when there’s always another man in between us?” he complained constantly.

How Tony Stark had managed to make enough t-shirts of his face to last Bucky an entire school year is not a question that Bucky wants answered. Every t-shirt was different, too. Bucky has to now donate four boxes of Tony Stark t-shirts to children in like, South America, or use them to create the biggest bonfire the school has ever seen.

“Thank god,” Steve says. “Because if you thought I was letting you into our apartment with those hideous things, I was going to refer you to the spare bedroom at Natasha’s.”

Natasha had joined the New York City Ballet. She was going to rent a tiny apartment in Hell’s Kitchen with Maria Hill and some girl who had graduated the year before named Elektra. Clint was picked up by some Kickstarter start up near Union Square and Sam was doing a year at Teach for America in Philadelphia. Bucky’s going to miss Sam, the weirdo, but Philly’s only two hours from the City by bus and even shorter by Amtrak. Peggy was going back to England to pursue a DPhil in Architectural History at Oxford. She's already made Steve and Bucky promise to come visit during one of their breaks.

As for Bucky--

“My boyfriend, the writer,” Steve says, leaning up to kiss him now.

“Future writer,” Bucky says, mouth full of Steve Rogers. “Let me finish my degree, man.”

It had been a day he never would have foreseen a year ago--the day he received his acceptance email from Columbia’s MFA program. He had applied after some trepidation and mostly on a whim, Steve’s encouragement in his ear. But when he’d opened that email--god, it had felt right. He'd felt something click into place, a certainty he’s only known once before. With one person.

Steve tangles his fingers into Bucky’s hair, tugs on the ends to pull him closer.

“Steve,” Bucky mumbles.

Steve ignores him, tries to crawl up Bucky’s body.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky says.

Steve kisses him so thoroughly, so enthusiastically, that Bucky almost forgets--

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Bucky says, finally breaking away, breathing heavy, head spinning. If Steve starts this now, Bucky isn’t going to be able to stop until they’ve found some kind of surface to uh, enjoy each other against.

“Ugh,” Steve says. “You used to be so fun. Romance is dead.”

“You’re a _brat_ ,” Bucky says. See what he means?

He smiles anyway and slips the gown on, puts the hat on his head.

“How do I look?” Bucky asks Steve.

“Like you’re ready to graduate,” Steve says with a fond smile.

Bucky takes a deep breath and nods.

He turns to Steve, who is also in his cap and gown, although looking a little bit more rumpled for the wear.

“Steve,” he says. “My mom wanted you to know that--she’s here for me, but she’s here for you too. Your Ma might not be here, but she’s watching from somewhere, you know? And until then, you have Winifred Barnes in your corner.”

Steve looks taken aback by that and then, very quickly, overcome with emotion.

He nods when he can’t talk, his eyes shining in the afternoon light.

“She’s so proud of you,” Bucky says softly. He leans forward and presses a kiss to Steve’s forehead. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Me too,” Steve says when he’s collected himself. “Of you.”

Steve frames Bucky’s face with his hands and they both lean toward each other, both the sunflower and the sun.

"I love you, Steve Rogers," Bucky whispers. He feels it everywhere, from his chest to his toes.

"I love you too," Steve whispers back.

Their kiss is brief, sweet, chaste. It's filled with a year of love and more to come.

“Okay,” Steve finally says reluctantly. “Sam’s texted me like twelve times since I’ve been in here saying if we don’t stop making out we have to sit next to Tony at graduation.”

“No!” Bucky nearly shouts. “I have worn that man’s face on my chest for _a whole goddamn year_. _No more._ No! More!”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Steve mutters. “Next time we’re in bed, I’ll wear one of those shirts and you see how you like it.”

They both stare at each other and make a face of pure disgust.

Someone--Sam, no doubt--bangs at Bucky’s door.

“ _Let’s go, assholes!_ ”

Bucky sighs and adjusts his cap. Then he reaches forward and brushes stray bangs out of Steve’s eyes.

“Ready?” Steve asks with a smile.

“Anything, with you,” Bucky says and he means it.

  
Steve offers his hand to Bucky, like he’s offering him something for the future--a path forward, undefined and terrifying, with nothing planned and everything left to decide, together.

Bucky takes it and feels a thrill run through his stomach.

He’s never been more excited for what’s to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all there is, there isn't any more! Thank you again to my absolutely lovely artist [fingersnapstothat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingersnapstothat)! Your artwork was delightful and exactly what this rom com needed. 
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, let me know your feels + check out some of my other (also completely long, completely ridiculous) works! ♥

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed/are enjoying this fic, I'd love to hear from you in comments. And if not there, you can find me reblogging gay shit over at @[spacerenegades](http://spacerenegades.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!


End file.
